A $3-ṞPR$ Parallel Mechanism With Singularities That are Self-Motions

The Cartesian workspace of most three-degree-of-freedom parallel mechanisms is divided by Type 2 (also called parallel) singularity surfaces into several regions. Accessing more than one such region requires crossing a Type 2 singularity, which is risky and calls for sophisticated control strategies. Some mechanisms can still cross these Type 2 singularity surfaces through “holes” that represent Type 1 (also called serial) singularities only. However, what is even more desirable is if these Type 2 singularity surfaces were curves instead. Indeed, there exists at least one such parallel mechanism (the agile eye) and all of its singularities are self-motions. This paper presents another parallel mechanism, a planar one, whose singularities are self-motions. The singularities of this novel mechanism are studied in detail. While the Type 2 singularities in the Cartesian space still constitute a surface, they degenerate into lines in the active-joint space, which is the main result of this paper.