Comparative Analysis of Characteristics of the Coupled and Decoupled Parallel Mechanisms

The existence of coupling makes the parallel mechanism possess some special advantages over the serial mechanism, while it is just the coupling that brings about the parallel mechanism some limitations, such as complex workspace, high nonlinear relationship between input and output, difficulties in static and dynamic analysis, and the development of control system, which restricts its application fields. The decoupled parallel mechanism is currently one of the research focuses of the mechanism fields, while the study on the different characteristics between the decoupled and coupled parallel mechanisms has not been reported. Therefore, this paper performs the systematic comparative analysis of the 3-RPUR and the 3-CPR parallel mechanisms. The features of the two mechanisms are described and their movement forms are analyzed with screw theory. The inverse and forward displacement solutions are solved and the Jacobian matrices are obtained. According to the Jacobian matrices and by using the theory of physical model of the solution space, the workspace, dexterity, velocity, payload capability, and stiffness of the mechanisms are analyzed with plotting the indices atlases. The research results prove that the effects of the coupling on the parallel mechanism are double-side, and then the adoption of the decoupled parallel mechanism should be determined by the requirements of the concrete application situation. The contents of this paper should be useful for the type synthesis and practical application of the parallel mechanism.