Abstract: Tricept robot is one of the most successfully commercialized parallel kinematic machines. An approach for the optimal dimensional synthesis of Tricept robot is presented. Given the prescribed workspace, this approach allows the independent design parameters to be achieved in a time effective manner by optimizing a global performance index in terms of the mean value and the extreme difference of the condition number of the Jacobian matrix throughout the entire workspace. The results of optimization obtained by this approach verify the validity of the existing machines, which thereby might also provide a useful tool for the optimal design of the other parallel kinematic machines with different structural topology.

Key words: Dimensional synthesis, Parallel mechanisms, Workspace