The dexterous workspace of simple manipulators

Abstract

A theoretical study on the dexterous workspace of robotic manipulators is presented. For a robot with wrists that can generate a full range of orientations, the boundary of the robot's dexterous workspace is governed by the boundary of W/sub 1/(4), where W/sub 1/(4) is the reachable space of joint 4 when joints 1-3 are free to rotate. A method is developed on this basis. Three examples are given to illustrate this concept and method. They show that for simple robots, analytical expressions for the dexterous workspace can be obtained. >