Analysing the singularities of 6-SPS parallel robots using virtual legs

Abstract

A virtual leg in a 6-SPS parallel robot is defined as a leg whose length is determined by the lengths of a subset of the actual legs of the robot. This necessarily implies that this subset of legs defines a rigid subassembly. In this paper, we consider four different rigid subassemblies, and show how the singularities of a robot containing one or several of these subassemblies are modified when substituting its actual legs by virtual legs.