On development of a 3D passive manipulator

This paper describes development of a 3D workspace passive (3DP) manipulator. We constrain the movement of a sphere to rotate about its own center and transform their 3 rotational motion to a three dimensional workspace (x,y,z). The 3DP manipulator consists of a two serial links connected to the spherical ball, and three steering wheel joints. Three steering wheels control rotating axis and limit the sphere to only rotate about its own center. The sphere has 3 C-space, roll, pitch, and yaw (/spl phi/, /spl alpha/, /spl beta/). The serial links, attached on top of the ball, transform sphere rotating to Cartesian translation motion. The counterbalance design and kinematics of the manipulator are also provided.