Performance measures are quintessential to the design, synthesis, study and application of robotic manipulators. Numerous performance measures have been defined to study the performance and behavior of manipulators since the early days of robotics; some more widely accepted than others, but their real significance and limitations have not always been well understood. The aim of this survey is t...

Redundant manipulators have potential advantages of using their degree(s) of redundancy to satisfy additional task(s). To achieve desirable performance criteria, various optimization techniques can be applied to redundant manipulators. In the work presented, the redundancy resolution of planar wire-actuated parallel manipulators is investigated at the kinematic and dynamic levels in order to pe...

In this paper we present a practical method for finding obstacle-free minimum-time motions for manipulators subject to the limits of velocity-dependent actuator forces. An optimal motion-planning problem is converted into a finite-dimensional nonlinear programming problem by means of parameter optimization with quintic B-splines. We introduce the concept of the minimum-overload trajectory in wh...

This paper describes and discusses the history and state of the art of continuous backbone robot manipulators. Also known as continuum manipulators, these robots, which resemble biological trunks and tentacles, offer capabilities beyond the scope of traditional rigid link manipulators. They are able to adapt their shape to navigate through complex environments and grasp a wide variety of payloa...

In this paper, stiffness of planar translational wire-actuated parallel manipulators is studied. The complete form of the stiffness matrix of the two degrees of freedom manipulators is formulated parametrically. The differential form of the static force balance equations is used to incorporate the variation of wire stiffness with wire length and the change in the Jacobian matrix under external ...

In this paper, a coordination strategy for determining collision free path of end effectors of two manipulators involved in coordinated manipulation is proposed. This strategy consists of collision checking and path planning modules. Collision checking is done by modeling the links and environment of manipulator using sphere swept volume technique and utilizing minimum distance heuristic for in...

In this paper, different approaches to solve the forward kinematics of a three DOF actuator redundant hydraulic parallel manipulator are presented. On the contrary to series manipulators, the forward kinematic map of parallel manipulators involves highly coupled nonlinear equations, which are almost impossible to solve analytically. The proposed methods are using neural networks identification ...

Manipulation is an essential capability for mobile robots to perform many useful tasks. Our focus has been on mobile robots with nonprehensile (i.e., nongrasping) manipulators. Here, the robots are equipped with a flat “palm” with two degrees of freedom. We have tackled the problem of carrying an object using two such mobile manipulators. Since these manipulators cannot grasp an object, each ro...

An architecturally singular parallel manipulator is a parallel manipulator with architectural singularities spanning the whole workspace. It should be abandoned in the design process. This paper deals with the generation of architecturally singular 6-SPS parallel manipulators with linearly related planar platforms. The forward displacement analysis of the 6-SPS parallel manipulator with linearl...

The explicit, non-recursive symbolic form of the dynamic model of robotic manipulators with compliant links and joints are developed based on Lagrangianassumed modes formulation. This form of dynamic model is suitable for controller synthesis, as well as accurate simulations of robotic applications. The final form of the equations are organized in a form similar to rigid manipulator equations. ...