Étude d'un nouveau manipulateur parallèle ayant une plateforme articulée et un engrenage planétaire

This thesis presents a first analysis of a novel parallel manipulator architecture. The main particularity of this architecture is the use of an articulated platform, which is used for the positioning and the orientation of the end effector solely connected by two links through a planetary gearbox.

The main objective of this thesis is to present this novel parallel manipulator architecture and to propose a first analysis.

To achieve this objective, an initial research into past works on different parallel manipulator architectures has been done. This brief historical overview provides a better understanding of the this present work.

Once the manipulator architecture has been described, the study of the direct kinematics will be detailed. This determines the possible positions and orientations from a known actuators configuration. The inverse kinematics will then be solved in order to resolve the possible actuators configurations for a desired position and orientation of the end effector.

Using the direct and inverse kinematics, the different workspaces, such as the maximal, dextrous and constant orientation are observed. This analysis will give an idea of this parallel manipulator architecture positioning abilities.

An initial kinetic analysis of this manipulator is solved through Jacobian matrices. These matrices will define the end effector movement in relation with the actuators positions modification.

Finally, using the Jacobian matrices previously computed, a methodology will be defined in order to design isotropic configurations for this manipulator architecture.