4

Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel

Manipulators
Xiaoyu Wang and Luc Baron
Polytechnique of Montreal
Canada

1. Introduction
The evolution of requirements for mechanical products toward higher performances,
coupled with never ending demands for shorter product design cycle, has intensified the
need for exploring new architectures and better design methodologies in order to search the
optimal solutions in a larger design space including those with greater complexity which are
usually not addressed by available design methods. In the mechanism design of serial and
parallel manipulators, this is reflected by the need for integrating topological and geometric
synthesis to evaluate as many potential designs as possible in an effective way.
In the context of kinematics, a mechanism is a kinematic chain with one of its links
identified as the base and another as the end-effector (EE). A manipulator is a mechanism
with all or some of its joints actuated. Driven by the actuated joints, the EE and all links
undergo constrained motions with respect to the base (Tsai, 2001). A serial manipulator
(SM) is a mechanism of open kinematic chain while a parallel manipulator (PM) is a
mechanism whose EE is connected to its base by at least two independent kinematic chains
(Merlet, 1997). The early works in the manipulator research mostly dealt with a particular
design; each design was described in a particular way. With the number of designs
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increasing, the consistency, preciseness and conciseness of manipulator kinematic

description become more and more problematic. To describe how a manipulator is
kinematically constructed, no normalized term and definition have been proposed. The
words architecture (Hunt, 1982a), structure (Hunt, 1982b), topology (Powell, 1982), and type
(Freudenstein & Maki, 1965; Yang & Lee, 1984) all found their way into the literature,
describing kinematic chains without reference to dimensions. However, some kinematic
properties of spatial manipulators are sensitive to certain kinematic details. The problem is
that with the conventional description, e.g. the topology (the term topology is preferred here
to other terms), manipulators of the same topology might be too different to even be
classified in the same category. The implementation of the kinematic synthesis shows that
the traditional way of defining a manipulator’s kinematics greatly limits both the qualitative
and quantitative designs of spatial mechanisms and new method should be proposed to
solve the problem. From one hand, the dimension-independent aspect of topology does not
pose a considerable problem to planar manipulators, but makes it no longer appropriate to
describe spatial manipulators especially spatial PMs, because such properties as the degree
Source: Parallel Manipulators, New Developments, Book edited by: Jee-Hwan Ryu, ISBN 978-3-902613-20-2, pp. 498, April 2008,
I-Tech Education and Publishing, Vienna, Austria

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58 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

of freedom (DOF) of a manipulator and the degree of mobility (DOM) of its EE as well as the
mobility nature are highly dependent on some geometric elements. On the other hand,
when performing geometric synthesis, some dimensional and geometric constraints should
be imposed in order for the design space to have a good correspondence with the set of
manipulators which can satisfy the basic design requirements (the DOF, DOM and the
mobility nature), otherwise, a large proportion of the design space may have nothing to do
with the design problem in hand. As for the kinematic representation of PMs, one can
hardly find a method which is adequate for a wide range of manipulators and commonly
accepted and used in the literature. However, in the classification (Balkan et al., 2001; Su et
al., 2002), comparison studies (Gosselin et al., 1995; Tsai & Joshi, 2001) (equivalence,
isomorphism, similarity, difference, etc.) and manipulator kinematic synthesis, an effective
kinematic representation is essential. The first part of this work will be focused on the
topology issue.
Manipulators of the same topology are then distinguished by their kinematic details.
Parameter (Denavit & Hartenberg, 1954), dimension (Chen & Roth, 1969; Chedmail, 1998),
and geometry (Park & Bobrow, 1995) are among the terms used to this end and the ways of
defining a particular manipulator are even more diversified. When performing kinematic
synthesis, which parameters should be put under what constraints are usually dictated by
the convenience of the mathematic formulation and the synthesis algorithm implementation
instead of by a good delimitation of the searching space. Another problematic is the numeric
representation of the topology and the geometry which is suitable for the implementation of
global optimization methods, e.g. genetic algorithms and the simulated annealing. This will
be the focus of the second part of this work.

2. Preliminary
Some basic concepts and definitions about kinematic chains are necessary to review as a
starting point of our discussion on topology and geometry. A kinematic chain is a set of
rigid bodies, also called links, coupled by kinematic pairs. A kinematic pair is, then, the
coupling of two rigid bodies so as to constrain their relative motion. We distinguish upper
pairs and lower pairs. An upper kinematic pair constrains two rigid bodies such that they
keep a line or point contact; a lower kinematic pair constrains two rigid bodies such that a
surface contact is maintained (Angeles, 2003). A joint is a particular mechanical
implementation of a kinematic pair (IFToMM, 2003). As shown in Fig. 1, there are six types
of joints corresponding to the lower kinematic pairs - spherical (S), cylindrical (C), planar
(E), helical (H), revolute (R) and prismatic (P) (Angeles, 1982). Since all these joints can be
obtained by combining the revolute and prismatic ones, it is possible to deal only with
revolute and prismatic joints in kinematic modelling. Moreover, all these joints can be
represented by elementary geometric elements, i.e., point and line. To characterize links, the
notions of simple link, binary link, ternary link, quaternary link and n-link were introduced
to indicate how many other links a link is connected to. Similarly, binary joint, ternary joint
and n-joint indicate how many links are connected to a joint. A similar notion is the
connectivity of a link or a joint (Baron, 1997). These basic concepts constitute a basis for
kinematic analysis and kinematic synthesis.

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 59

Figure 1: Lower Kinematic Pairs

3. Topology
For kinematic studies, the kinematic description of a mechanism consists of two parts, one is
qualitative and the other quantitative. The qualitative part indicates which link is connected
to which other links by what types of joints. This basic information is referred to as
structure, architecture, topology, or type, respectively, by different authors. When dealing
with complex spatial mechanisms, the qualitative description alone is of little interest,
because the kinematic properties of the corresponding mechanisms can vary too much to
characterize a mechanism. This can be demonstrated by the single-loop 4-bar mechanisms
shown in Fig. 2. Without reference to dimensions, all mechanisms shown in Fig. 2 are of the
same kinematic structure but have very distinctive kinematic properties and therefore are
used for different applications— mechanism a) generates planar motion, mechanism b)
generates spherical motion, mechanism c) is a Bennett mechanism (Bennett, 1903), while
mechanism d) permits no relative motion at any joints. Fig. 3 shows an example of parallel
mechanisms having the same kinematic structure—mechanism a) has 3 DOFs whose EE has
no mobility, mechanism b) has 3 DOFs whose EE has 3 DOMs in translation, mechanism c)
permits no relative motion at any joints.

Figure 2: 4-bar mechanisms of different geometries

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60 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

a) b) c)
Figure 3: 3-PRRR parallel mechanisms
A particular mechanism is thus described, in addition to the basic information, by a set of
parameters which define the relative position and orientation of each joint with respect to its
neighbors. For complex closed-loop mechanisms, an often ignored problem is that certain
parameters must take particular values or be under certain constraints in order for the
mechanism to be functional and have the intended kinematic properties. In absence of these
special conditions, the mechanisms may not even be assembled. More attention should be
payed to these particular conditions which play a qualitative role in determining some
important kinematic properties of the mechanism. For kinematic synthesis, not only do the
eligible mechanisms have particular kinematic structures, but also they feature some
particular relative positions and orientations between certain joints. If this particularity is
not taken into account when formulating the synthesis model, a great number of
mechanisms generated with the model will not have the required kinematic properties and
have to be discarded. This is why the topology and geometry issue should be revisited, the
special joint dispositions be investigated and an adapted definition be proposed.
Since the 1960s, a very large number of manipulator designs have been proposed in the
literature or disclosed in patent files. The kinematic properties of these designs were studied
mostly on a case by case basis; characteristics of their kinematic structure were often not
investigated explicitly; the constraints on the relative joint locations which are essential for a
manipulator to meet the kinematic requirements were rarely treated in a topology
perspective.
Constraints are introduced mainly to meet the functional requirements, to simplify the
kinematic model, to optimize the kinematic performances, or from manufacturing
considerations. These constraints can be revealed by investigating the underlying design
ideas.
For a serial manipulator to generate planar motion, all its revolute joints need to be parallel
and all its prismatic joints should be perpendicular to the revolute joints. For a serial
manipulator to generate spherical motion, the axes of all its revolute joints must be
concurrent (McCarthy, 1990). For a parallel manipulator with three identical legs to produce
only translational motion, the revolute joints of the same leg must be arranged in one or two
directions (Wang, 2003).
A typical example of simplifying the kinematic model is the decoupling of the position and
orientation of the EE of a 6-joint serial manipulator. This is realized by having three
consecutive revolute joint axes concurrent. A comprehensive study was presented in
(Ozgoren, 2002) on the inverse kinematic solutions of 6-joint serial manipulators. The study

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 61

reveals how the inverse kinematic problem is simplified by making joint axes parallel,
perpendicular or intersect.
Based on the analysis of the existing kinematic design, the definition of the manipulator

•
topology and geometry is proposed as the following:
the kinematic composition of a manipulator is the essential information about the number
of its links, which link is connected to which other links by what types of joints and

•
which joints are actuated;
the characteristic constraints are the minimum conditions for a manipulator of given
kinematic composition to have the required kinematic properties, e.g. the DOF, the

•
DOM;
the topology of a manipulator is its kinematic composition plus the characteristic

•
constraints;
The geometry of a manipulator is a set of constraints on the relative locations of its joints
which are unique to each of the manipulators of the same topology.
Hence, topology also has a geometric aspect such as parallelism, perpendicularity, coplanar,
and even numeric values and functions on the relative joint locations which used to be
considered as geometry. By definition, geometry no longer includes relative joint locations
which are common to all manipulators of the same topology because the later are the
characteristic constraints and belong to the topology category. A manipulator can thus be
much better characterized by its topology.
Taking the basic ideas of graph representation (Crossley, 1962; Crossley, 1965) and layout
graph representation (Pierrot, 1991), we propose that the kinematic composition be
represented by a diagram having the graph structure so as to be eventually adapted for
automatic synthesis. The joint type is designated as an upper case letter, i.e., R for revolute,
P for prismatic, H for helical, C for cylindrical, S for spherical and E for planar. Actuated
joints are identified by a line under the corresponding joint. The letters denoting joint types
are placed at the vertices of the diagram, while the links are represented by edges. Fig. 4 and
Fig. 5 are two examples of representation of kinematic composition. Each joint has two joint
elements, to which element a link is connected is indicated by the presence or absence of the
arrow. Any link connected to the same joint element is actually rigidly attached and no
relative motion is possible. The most left column represents the base carrying three actuated
revolute joints while the most right column the EE. The EE is connected to the base by three
identical kinematic chains composed of three revolute joints respectively. It is noteworthy
that the two different manipulators have exactly the same kinematic composition. The
diagram must bear additional information in order to appropriately represent the topology.

a) Physical manipulator b) Diagram

Figure 4: Kinematic Composition of a Planar 3-RRR parallel manipulator

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62 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

a) Physical manipulator b) Diagram

Figure 5: Kinematic Composition of a Spherical 3-RRR parallel manipulator

When dealing with manipulators composed of only lower kinematic pairs, the characteristic
constraints are the relative locations between lines. Constraints on relative joint axis
locations can be summarized as the following six and only six possible situations shown in
Fig.6. Superimposing the characteristic constraint symbols on the kinematic composition
diagrams shown in Fig. 4 and 5, we get the diagrams shown in Fig. 7 and 8.

Figure 6: Graphic symbols for characteristic constraints

a) Physical manipulator b) Topological diagram

Figure 7: Diagram of a planar parallel manipulator with characteristic constraints
When implementing the automatic topology generation of a SM composed of only revolute

•
and prismatic joints, the topology is represented by 6 integers, i.e.

•
n: number of joints.
x0: kinematic composition. Its bits 0 to n − 1 represent respectively the joint type of
joints 1 to n with 1 for revolute and 0 for prismatic.

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 63

• x1: bits 0 to n − 2 indicate respectively whether the axes of joints 2 to n − 1 intersect the

•
immediate preceding joint axis.
x2: each two consecutive bits characterize the orientation of the corresponding joint
relative to the immediate preceding joint with 00 for parallel, 01 for perpendicular, and

•
10 for the general case.
x3: supplementary constraint identifying joints whose axes are concurrent. All joint axes

•
whose corresponding bits are set to 1 are concurrent.
x4: supplementary constraint identifying joints whose axes are parallel. All joint axes
whose corresponding bits are set to 1 are parallel.

a) Physical manipulator b) Diagram

Figure 8: Diagram of a spherical parallel manipulator with characteristic constraints
With this numerical representation, topological constraint can be imposed on a general
kinematic model to carry out geometric synthesis to ensure that the search is performed in
designs with the intended kinematic properties. The binary form makes the representation
very compact. No serial kinematic chain should have more than 3 prismatic joints, so all
values for x0 of 6 joint kinematic chains take only 42B (byte) storage. Those for x1 take 31B
while those for x2 243B. Without supplementary constraints which are applied between non
adjacent joints, the maximum number of topologies is 316386 (some topologies, those with
two consecutive parallel prismatic joints for example, will not be considered for topological
synthesis purpose). All topologies without supplementary constraint can be stored in a list,
making the walk through quite straightforward. Applying supplementary constraints while
walking through the list provides a systematic way for automatic topology generation.

4. Geometry
In the kinematic synthesis of SMs, the most successively employed geometric representation
is the Denavit-Hartenberg notation (Denavit & Hartenberg, 1954). For PMs, the Denavit-
Hartenberg notation is more or less adapted to suit the particularity of the manipulator
being studied, especially for reducing the number of parameters and simplifying the
formulation and solution of the kinematic model (Baron et al., 2002). One major problem of
the later in implementing computer aided geometric synthesis is the computation of the
initial configuration. Once a new set of parameters are generated, the assembly of each
design take too much computation and sometimes the computation don’t converge at all.
This may be du to the complexity of the kinematic model or that the set of parameters
correspond to no manipulator in the real domain. It also arrives that only within a subspace
of the entire workspace, a particular design possesses the desired kinematic properties,

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64 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

making the computation useless outside the subspace. A PM (Fig. 9) presented in (Zlatanov
et al., 2002) is a good example of this kind. Depending on the initial configuration, the
manipulation can be a translational one or spherical one. Another problem encountered
when performing computer aided synthesis is that the entire set of equations is
underdetermined, while a subset of the set is overdetermined. It seems that the set of
parameters correspond to no functional manipulator. But manipulators having such
mathematic equations do exist. The PM shown in Fig. 10 has 8 DOF for the system on the
whole and its EE has 3 DOM. The two PRRR legs form an overdetermined system, but the
system on the whole is underdetermined.

Figure 9: 3-RRRRR [28]

To improve the efficiency of the computation algorithms, an initial configuration seems to
be an effective solution. So, for PMs, we proposed that the geometry definition be always
accompanied by an initial configuration to start with and the evaluation computation is
carried out mainly in certain neighborhood of the initial configuration.
The most challenging part of the kinematic synthesis is the integration of the topological
synthesis and geometric synthesis. From the best of knowledge of the authors, the most
systematic study in this regard is that presented in (Ramstein, 1999). In (Ramstein, 1999), the
synthesis problem is formulated as an global optimization problem with genetic algorithms
as solution tools. The joint type is represented by boolean numbers with 1 for prismatic and
0 for revolute. The synthesis results are far from what were expected. The problem is that
the population does not migrate as much as expected from one topology region to another,
making the synthesis concentrate on a very few topologies.
Since the joint type is represented by discrete numbers, a joint can only be either prismatic
or revolute, nothing in between, which greatly limites the diversity and the migration of the
solution population. With the simulated annealing techniques, similar situations have been
observed by the authors.
Inspired by this observation, the basic concept of fuzzy logic and the fact that a prismatic
joint is actually a revolute joint at infinity, we introduce the concept: joint nature which is a
non negative real number to characterize the level of the “revoluteness” of a joint. This
allows us to deal with the prismatic joints and the revolute ones in the same way and permit
a joint to evolve between revolute and prismatic. Although a joint in between is meaningless
in real application, this increases the migration channels for the solution populations and

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 65

probability of finding the global optima. Before proposing the joint nature definition, it
should be inspected how a revolute joint mathematically evolves toward prismatic joint.

Figure 10: An overconstrained mechanism with redundant joints

•
Nomenclature

•
b : subscript to identify the base;

•
e : subscript to identify the end-effector;

•
Fi : reference frame attached to link i;

•
Gi : 3 × 3 orientation matrix of Fi with respect to Fi−1 at the initial configuration;

•
Ghi : 4 × 4 homogeneous orientation matrix of Fi with respect to Fi−1 at the

• d ρ c : 3 × 1 position vector of the origin of Fc in Fd;

initial configuration;

• ρ i : 3 × 1 position vector of the origin of Fi in Fi−1;

•
•
pi : 3 × 1 position vector of the origin of Fi in Fb

•
Ai : 3 × 3 orientation matrix of Fi with respect to Fi−1;

•
dQc : 3 × 3 orientation matrix of Fc with respect to Fd;

Rz ( θ ) : 3 × 3 rotation matrix about z axis with θ being the rotation angle:

Qc : 3 × 3 orientation matrix of Fc with respect to Fb;
•

⎡cos(θ ) − sin (θ ) 0⎤
R z (θ ) = ⎢ sin (θ ) cos(θ ) 0⎥ ;
⎢ ⎥
⎣ 0 0 1⎦
• Rhz ( θ ) : 4 × 4 homogeneous rotation matrix about z axis with θ being the rotation

•
angle;
Bx (r) : 4 × 4 homogeneous translation matrix along x axis with r being the translation

•
distance;

•
Ci : 4 × 4 homogeneous transformation matrix of Fi in Fi−1;

•
Hi : 4 × 4 homogeneous transformation matrix of Fi in Fb;

•
dHc : 4 × 4 homogeneous transformation matrix of Fc in Fd;

ei : the kth canonical vector which is defined as

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66 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

⎡ ⎤
= ⎢ 0 ... 0 1 0 ... 0 ⎥
T

⎣ k −1 n − k ⎦
ek

•
whose dimension is implicit and depends on the context;

•
dTc : tangent operator of Fc in Fd expressed in Fb;

•
f, dTc : tangent operator of Fc in Fd expressed in Ff ;

•
dtc : tangent vector of Fc in Fd expressed in Fb;

•
f, dtc : tangent vector of Fc in Fd expressed in Ff ;

tc : tangent vector of Fc in Fb expressed in Fb.

Suppose two links coupled by a revolute joint and a reference frame is attached to each of
them; at an initial configuration, the origins of the two reference frames Fi−1 and Fi coincide;
the joint axis is parallel to the z-axis of Fi−1 and intersects the negative side of the x-axis of
Fi−1 at right angle (Fig. 11).
The relative orientation and position are given as

Ai = Rz( θ i)Gi (1)

ρ i = −rie1 + riRz( θ i)e1 (2)

⎡ri cos(θ i ) − ri ⎤ ⎡− 2ri sin 2 (θ i / 2 )⎤

ρ i = ⎢ r sin (θ i ) ⎥ = ⎢⎢ ri sin (θ i ) ⎥⎥
⎢ ⎥
(3)

⎣ 0 ⎦ ⎢⎣ 0 ⎥⎦
Instead of taking θ i as joint variable, we define

qi = r i θ i (4)
to measure the relative pose of the two links and q i is referred to as normalized joint
variable. In addition, we define

wi =
1
(5)
ri

Figure 11: Two links coupled by a revolute joint

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 67

Then from equations (3), (4), and (5), we have

⎡− 2 sin 2 (wi q i / 2 ) / wi ⎤
ρ i = ⎢⎢ sin (wi qi ) / wi ⎥
⎥
(6)
⎢⎣ 0 ⎥⎦
It is evident that

⎡0⎤
lim ρ i = ⎢⎢qi ⎥⎥
(7)
w →0
i
⎣0⎦

lim Ai = lim [R z (wi qi )Gi ] = Gi

wi →0 wi →0

Equation (7) is just the relative pose of the two links when they are coupled by a prismatic
joint. With the above formulation, revolute joints and prismatic ones can be treated in a
unified way and the normalization of the joint variable is the key to achieve this.
Definition: the nature of a joint in a kinematic chain is represented by a pair (k,w) where k is a
natural number identifying its orientation from other joints, while w is a non negative number
characterizing its membership to revolute joint.
In fact, w characterizes the distance of a revolute joint with respect to the origin of the global
reference and represent a prismatic joint when it is equal to 0.
The topology of a fully parallel mechanism of n-DOF is represented by n matrices with each
matrix representing a subchain from the base to the end-effector:

⎡ k j ,1 k j , 2 ... k j ,m j −1 k j ,m j −1 ⎤
⎢w ⎥ , j = 1, 2, ... , n
⎣ j ,1 w j , 2 ... w j ,m j −1 w j ,m j −1 ⎦
(8)

where m j is the total number of joints of j th subchain.

This numerical representation is aimed at simultaneous synthesis of both topology and
geometry.
For geometric representation, instead of describing separately the geometry of each link, we
describe an initial configuration. This is done by giving the coordinates of all joint axes with
respect to the global reference frame.
Definition: the location of a joint axis at an initial configuration is represented by a triple ( n̂ ,
m̂ ,w) where n̂ is a unit vector defining the orientation of the joint axis, m̂ is a unit vector
indicating the direction of the moment of n̂ with respect to the origin of the global reference frame, w
is the nature of the joint.
It is here that the topology information is integrated into the geometric definition.
The Plücker coordinates of the joint axis is simply

⎡ wnˆ ⎤
l=⎢ ⎥
⎣ mˆ ⎦
(9)

With this representation, it should be avoided to position the joint such that its axis is too
close to the origin of the global reference frame, because this will lead to parameter

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68 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

singularity, that is w will approach infinity. This does not limit the representation method,
because it is the relative location of the joints that defines the geometry, changing the
reference frame does not change the geometry.
The topology and geometry of a fully parallel mechanism of n-DOF is represented by n
matrices with each matrix representing a subchain from the base to the EE:

⎡ nˆ j ,1 nˆ j , 2 ... nˆ j ,m −1 nˆ j ,m ⎤
⎢ ⎥
⎢ j ⎥
j j

−
⎢ w j ,1 w j , 2 ... w j ,m j −1 w j ,m j ⎥
mˆ j ,1 ˆ
m j , 2 ... ˆ
m j , m 1 ˆ
m j , m , j = 1, 2, ... , n (10)

⎣ ⎦
j

where mj is the total number of joints of jth subchain.

Those are the design parameters, they are continuous and suffer from no parameter
singularity problem.

5. Kinematic modelling of general PMs

The reference frames for all links are defined at the initial configuration and this is done by
following the rules given below:
1. Locate the reference frame for the EE such that no joint axis passes through its origin
(Fig. 12);

Figure 12: Frame assignment for the EE

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 69

frame: recall that b ρ e and bQe denote respectively the position and the orientation of
2. Change the reference frame of the topological and geometric parameters to the EE

the EE frame in the base frame. For every joint (the subscript is dropped off for
simplicity), if bw = 0 then

e n̂ = eQ b b n̂

ew = 0 (11)
otherwise, let P be a point on the axis, br and er denote its positions in the base frame and in
the EE frame respectively, we then have

ρ e x] denote the cross product matrix associated with ρ e, since

(12)
Let [b b

(13)
by substituting equation (13) into (12), we have

(14)
then, the Plücker coordinates of the axis in the EE frame can be computed as

(15)

Finally, e w = 1 / e m ˆ = e m/ e w .
and e m
2
3. Links of subchain j from the base to the EE are identified by link(j, 0) to link(j,mj ), the
base being link(j, 0) and the EE being link(j,mj ); joint coupling link(j, i−1) and link(j, i) is
identified by joint(j, i); frame Fj,i is attached to link(j, i)(Fig. 13); the base and the EE have
multiple rigidly attached frames with each of them corresponding to an individual
subchain;
4. The reference frame for link(j, i) is defined such that

(16)

e ρ j,i = 0 (17)
the z-axis of Fj,i being parallel to the axis of joint(j, i + 1) and the x-axis intersecting the
the axis of joint(j, i + 1) and pointing from the intersecting point to the origin of the EE
frame (Fig. 14). The y-axis is determined as usual by the right-hand rule.

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70 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

Figure 13: Link reference frames

Figure 14: Reference frame definition for link(i, j)

respect to the initial configuration is denoted by θ j,i and

5. The normalized joint variable of joint(j, i) is denoted by qj,i, the rotation angle with

θ j,i = w j,i q j,i (18)

6. Compute the link geometry matrices from bQe, eQj,0, · · ·, and eQj,mj :
for Gj,1 to Gj,mj−1

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 71

G i ,j = j,i-1 Q e e Q j,i (19)

Gj,0, Gj,mj , and Gj,e are treated differently, i.e.

G j, 0 = b Q e e Q j,0 (20)

G j,mj = 1 (21)

G j,e = j,mj Qe (22)

The sequence of links in each subchain has a corresponding sequence of homogeneous
transformations that defines the pose of each link relative to its neighbor in the chain. The
pose of the EE is therefore constrained by the product of these transformations through
every subchain. With the above frame assignment, the pose of link(j, i) with respect to link(j, i
− 1) is given as

(23)

The corresponding 3 × 3 orientation matrix is given as

(24)
The corresponding position is given as

(25)
This leads to

(26)

When wj,i approaches 0, we have

(27)

(28)

This corresponds to the situation of a prismatic joint.

The pose of the EE under the structure constraint of subchain j is

(29)

In terms of orientation and position, equation (29) can be written as

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72 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments

(30)

(31)

(32)

(33)

Equations (31) and (32) are used to compute the orientation and position of links other than
the base and the EE.
For a PM of n degree of freedom, the n subchains are closed by rigidly attaching together

by equating the transformation products defined by equation (29) of all subchains, i.e., ∀ j, k
their fist link frames and last link frames respectively. The structure equations are obtained

= 1, 2, · · · , n and j ≠ k

(34)

It is obvious that this kinematic formulation is not aimed at simplifying the forward or
inverse kinematic solutions, but for the simultaneous topological and geometric synthesis
with numeric method, genetic algorithms in particular. The initial population will be
generated using the numeric topological representation proposed in Section 3 and the
reproduction performed while respecting the characteristic constraints. The implementation
of the synthesis for translational PMs is being carried out in our laboratory.

6. Conclusion
By introducing characteristic constraints, kinematic chains of serial and parallel
manipulators can be better characterized. This is essential for both topology synthesis and
geometry synthesis. On the one hand, topology synthesis of spatial manipulator is no longer
dimension-independent; most of the topology syntheses are actually the search for some
special geometric constraints which play a key role in determining the fundamental
kinematic properties. On the other hand, it is necessary to identify the characteristic
constraints when performing geometry synthesis in order for the design space to correspond
appropriately to the manipulators having the intended kinematic properties. The graph
structure of the proposed topological representation makes it possible to implement
computer algorithms in order to perform systematic enumeration, comparison and
classification of serial and parallel manipulators. The geometric representation is well
adapted for computer aided simultaneous topological and geometric synthesis by
introducing the concepts of initial configuration and the joint nature, making it possible to

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Topology and Geometry of Serial and Parallel Manipulators 73

represent revolute joints and prismatic joints in a unified way. Then a singularity-free
parametrization of both topology and geometry was proposed. After that, joint variables
were normalized, which enables the joint type to be seamlessly incorporated into kinematic
model, it is no longer necessary to reformulate the kinematic model when a revolute joint is
replaced by a prismatic one or vice versa. The effectiveness of the propose kinematic
modelling remains to be evaluated.

7. Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the financial support of NSERC (National Science and
Engineering Research Council of Canada) under grants OGPIN-203618 and RGPIN- 138478.

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 Parallel Manipulators, New Developments
Edited by Jee-Hwan Ryu

ISBN 978-3-902613-20-2
Hard cover, 498 pages
Publisher I-Tech Education and Publishing
Published online 01, April, 2008
Published in print edition April, 2008

Parallel manipulators are characterized as having closed-loop kinematic chains. Compared to serial
manipulators, which have open-ended structure, parallel manipulators have many advantages in terms of
accuracy, rigidity and ability to manipulate heavy loads. Therefore, they have been getting many attentions in
astronomy to flight simulators and especially in machine-tool industries.The aim of this book is to provide an
overview of the state-of-art, to present new ideas, original results and practical experiences in parallel
manipulators. This book mainly introduces advanced kinematic and dynamic analysis methods and cutting
edge control technologies for parallel manipulators. Even though this book only contains several samples of
research activities on parallel manipulators, I believe this book can give an idea to the reader about what has
been done in the field recently, and what kind of open problems are in this area.

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Manipulators, New Developments, Jee-Hwan Ryu (Ed.), ISBN: 978-3-902613-20-2, InTech, Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/parallel_manipulators_new_developments/topology_and_geometry_of_seri
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