Virtual and Physical Prototyping of the 4-DOF Delta-type Parallel Robot Based on the Criteria of Closeness to Singularity

The article provides the procedures of virtual and physical prototyping of the recently proposed 4-DOF Delta-type parallel robot. First, the article considers the desired characteristics of the robot, such as workspace dimensions, rotation angles of the moving plate, its velocity and acceleration, and the estimated mass. Based on the desired geometric parameters, dimensional synthesis of the robot allows finding the lengths of the links and creating a virtual prototype using CAD software. Further, the article considers the drive choice based on the velocity and acceleration requirements. For this purpose, the approach uses speed and force criteria of closeness to singularity. It allows calculating the largest values of speed and torque of the motors, which provides the end-effector with prescribed displacements over the desired workspace. Physical prototype and experiments performed on its basis complete the article.