Jacobian analysis of a macro-micro parallel manipulator

In this paper the Jacobian analysis of a macro- micro parallel manipulator is studied in detail. The manipulator architecture is a simplified planar version adopted from the structure of Large Adaptive Reflector (LAR), the Canadian design of next generation giant radio telescopes. This structure is composed of two parallel and redundantly actuated manipulators at macro and micro level, which both are cable- driven. The Jacobian matrices of the manipulator at macro and micro level are derived and a thorough singularity and sensitivity analysis of the system is presented. It is shown that due to the crossed cable structure used in the design, the macro micro manipulator experiences no singularity at the required workspace.