| At the embodiment stage of a robot design, fundamental tasks such as kinematic, static, dynamic and constraint-wrench analyses are essential. Moreover, by considering link elasticity, the elastostatic and elastodynamic analyses also become essential. However, the foregoing analyses are more challenging for parallel robots, when compared with their serial counterparts.;This thesis aims to develop comprehensive methodologies for the elastostatic, elastodynamic and constraint-wrench analyses of robotic mechanical systems, while focusing on parallel architectures with reduced mobility. To this end, first, a systematic method for the calculation of the constraint wrenches of a mechanical system, imposed by the kinematic pairs, is proposed. This method helps the designer readily handle the constraint-wrench analysis of robots with parallel architectures.;In the next step, considering link elasticity, a novel method for the elastostatic analysis of parallel robots is proposed. This method is based on the concept of generalized spring. With the essential ingredients, stiffness and mass matrices, the elastodynamic analysis of the robot under study is conducted.;Although the analyses are motivated by the special features of a novel two-limb parallel manipulator designed at McGill University, called the McGill Schonflies Motion Generator (SMG), they are applicable to any other two-limb parallel robots. The McGill SMG can produce the Schonflies displacement subgroup, which comprises translations in the three-dimensional Cartesian space and one rotation about a fixed-orientation axis, as needed for most common pick-and-place operations. Finally, as an application of the proposed analyses, the optimum structural design of the McGill SMG is obtained. |
