Kinematics of a particular 3t1r parallel manipulator of type 2PRPU

Schoenflies-motion generators (SMGs) are 4-degrees-of-freedom (dof) manipulators whose end effector can perform translations along three independent directions, and rotations around one fixed direction (Schoenflies motions). Such motions constitute the 4-dimensional (4-D) Schoenflies subgroup of the 6-D displacement group. The most known SMGs are the serial robots named SCARA. Pick-and-place tasks are typical industrial applications that SMGs can accomplish. In the literature, 3T1R parallel manipulators (PMs) have been also proposed as SMGs. Here, a somehow novel 3T1R PM is presented and studied. Its finite and instantaneous kinematics are analyzed in depth, and analytic and geometric tools that are useful for its design are presented. The proposed SMG has a single-loop not-overconstrained architecture with actuators on or near the base and can make the end effector perform a complete rotation.