Master-slave operation for a 6-dof parallel haptic device and a hybrid 5-axis h-4 family parallel manipulator

Abstract

This paper illustrates a master-slave operation, for material removal processes, using in part prototyping processes which are consisted of a 6-DOF parallel haptic device as a master arm and a hybrid 5-Axis H-4 family parallel manipulator as a slave arm. The master-slave system is designed and built for 5-axis milling processes and aimed to use in a man-machine interfaced for material removal processes of rapid prototyping system. The haptic arm or the master arm with force reflection capability is used for measuring of 3D surface information, points and orientations, of the referenced object. The measured coordinates are used as reference information to control positions and orientations of the end-effector of the slave manipulator arm, a 5-Axis machine. The experimental results show that the operator with feeling of force, by operating the haptic device, can better control of the slave manipulator arm in material removal processes. Force reflection information improves the feeling of operation significantly. The results also show good accuracy with average error about 1 mm due to the limitation of the measurement sensors attached.