Optimal design of a redundantly actuated 4-legged six degree of freedom parallel manipulator using composite design index

This work attempts to develop a procedure for the optimal design of a redundantly actuated six degree of freedom parallel manipulator. A concept of composite design index is developed to deal with multi-criteria based design in a systematic manner, and this index is employed to obtain a set of optimal dimensions for this manipulator. Two different designs are investigated, and they are compared in terms of their local characteristics. Finally, the fault-tolerant capability afforded by redundant actuation is evaluated in terms of partial actuator failures.