Performance analysis and optimization of a five-degrees-of-freedom compliant hybrid parallel micromanipulator

There are generally two main directions for the investigation and development of parallel manipulators, namely macro/meso stream and micro/nano stream, in which the former one has been thoroughly investigated in recent decades, while the latter one still remains many performance related open issues that significantly affect their application potentials in critical situations such as high-precision automated cell manipulation. Improving the overall performance of parallel manipulators is the bridge to connect the academia and industry for the great development and real-world application. This research is to develop a novel methodology called performance decomposition and integration for governing the design optimization process of complicated micromanipulator. A new five degrees-of-freedom (DOF) compliant hybrid parallel micromanipulator which is configured with five identical PSS limbs and one constraining UPU limb is proposed as a case study. The performance visualization, finite element analysis, and dimensional optimization are implemented. The proposed methodology is applicable for the design improvement of different kinds of compliant/parallel mechanisms. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.