Analytical determination of the optimal effective regular workspace of a 6-6 Stewart platform manipulator for a specified orientation workspace

This article presents an analytical method to identify the largest effective regular workspaces (ERWs) of a class of 6-6 Stewart platform manipulators for a given orientation workspace. The ERWs are modelled as spheres. The orientation workspace is specified in terms of ranges of Euler angles, as is the standard practice in the parallel robot industry. The radius of the said sphere is maximised through an optimisation problem, which is solved analytically. Consequently, the results obtained are exact in nature. The analytical formulation of the problem and its exact solutions constitute the novel theoretical contributions of this article. Moreover, since the results hold good over a given subset of SO(3), the proposed method obviates the need for numerical scanning of the orientation workspaces in design-related computations, thus improving the accuracy, robustness, as well as computational efficiency. Finally, the significance of the neutral height in harnessing the desired extents of position and orientation workspaces has been established through parametric studies. The formulations are illustrated via applications to Stewart platform manipulators of three distinct platform dimensions.