A new parallel wrist using only revolute pairs: the 3-RUU wrist

Abstract

Only one parallel wrist with three equal legs containing just revolute pairs has been already presented in the literature. This parallel wrist is overconstrained, i.e., it involves three degrees of freedom required to orientate the end effector by using repetitions of constraints. The overconstrained mechanisms have the drawback of jamming or undergoing high internal loads when geometric errors occur. This paper presents a new parallel wrist, named 3-RUU wrist. The 3-RUU wrist is not overconstrained. It has three equal legs just involving revolute pairs and actuators adjacent to the frame and uses an architecture (3-RUU) already employed to obtain manipulators that make the end effector translate. The 3-RUU wrist kinematic analysis is addressed. This analysis shows that the new parallel wrist can reach singular configurations (translation singularities) in which the spherical constraint between end effector and frame fails. The singularity condition that makes finding all the 3-RUU wrist singular configurations possible is written in explicit form and geometrically interpreted.