Screw Theory Based Singularity Analysis of Lower-Mobility Parallel Robots considering the Motion/Force Transmissibility and Constrainability

Singularity is an inherent characteristic of parallel robots and is also a typical mathematical problem in engineering application. In general, to identify singularity configuration, the singular solution in mathematics should be derived. This work introduces an alternative approach to the singularity identification of lower-mobility parallel robots considering the motion/force transmissibility and constrainability. The theory of screws is used as the mathematic tool to define the transmission and constraint indices of parallel robots. The singularity is hereby classified into four types concerning both input and output members of a parallel robot, that is, input transmission singularity, output transmission singularity, input constraint singularity, and output constraint singularity. Furthermore, we take several typical parallel robots as examples to illustrate the process of singularity analysis. Particularly, the input and output constraint singularities which are firstly proposed in this work are depicted in detail. The results demonstrate that the method can not only identify all possible singular configurations, but also explain their physical meanings. Therefore, the proposed approach is proved to be comprehensible and effective in solving singularity problems in parallel mechanisms.