Design of a reconfigurable platform manipulator

Modular robots introduce a new dimension to flexible automation in terms of hardware flexibility, in addition to the software flexibility, in terms of yielding individual global optimal configuration for each of the tasks at hand. The mechanical structure of fully parallel manipulators is very suitable for reconfiguration since those manipulators are actuated in parallel. To really achieve effective and convenient reconfiguration, however, there are design and planning issues to be addressed. In this article the conceptual design and actual construction of an experimental platform manipulator are presented. This experimental platform is built as a tool to aid our research on the design and planning issues related to reconfiguration of parallel manipulators.