A Novel Method on Singularity Analysis in Parallel Manipulators

A parallel manipulator is a closed loop mechanism in which a moving platform is connected to the base by at least two serial kinematic chains. The main problem engaged in these mechanisms, is their restricted working space as a result of singularities. In order to tackle these problems, many methods have been introduced by scholars. However, most of the mentioned methods are too much time consuming and need a great amount of computations. They also in most cases do not provide a good insight to the existence of singularity for the designer. In this paper a novel approach is introduced and utilized to identify singularities in parallel manipulators. By applying the new method, one could get a better understanding of geometrical interpretation of singularities in parallel mechanisms. Here we have introduced the Constraint Plane Method (CPM) and some of its applications in parallel mechanisms. The main technique used here, is based on Ceva Theorem.