Redundant modular robot

A robot of a redundant and modular type permitting displacement of a terminal (7) from an initial position to a final position, comprising at least two stages arranged one after another, of which a first stage is fixed to a base and a last stage supports said terminal, each stage comprising a platform (2) and six linear actuators (3a-3f), each actuator being articulated at one end thereof to the associated platform by a ball-and-socket connection, and at the opposite end to the platform of the preceding stage by a ball-and-socket connection said six linear actuators being arranged according to a closed angular architecture in which two ends of two adjacent actuators are articulated in proximity to each other to one platform and at their other ends are articulated to the next platform spaced from each other in order to form an angle between the two actuators, each stage comprising a system of sensors (4a-4c), for delivering signals representative of the relative position of the platform of each stage with respect to that to the preceding stage,

• said robot further comprising:
• accessible space data storage means (26) representative of accessible positions for each platform in a reference system connected to the preceding stage,
• means (25) for inputting operational coordinates representative of the final position to be attained,
• configuration computing means (27) for entering into the storage means (26) accessible space data and for receiving operational coordinates from the inputting means (25), said configuration computing means containing means for iterative calculations according to the following procedure:
• computing the distance between the position of the terminal corresponding to the configuration obtained in the preceding stage and the final desired position,
• computing the Jacobian displacement matrix associated with the configuration obtained in the preceding stage,
• executing logical operations between the Jacobian matrix and the distance for determining a new position of the platform, the totality of said positions being representative of a new configuration of the robot,
• verifying the suitability of these positions with the accessible positions for each platform and, in case of unsuitability, substituting for the calculated position an accessible position,
• determining the position of the terminal corresponding to the new configuration,
• repeating this procedure until obtaining a distance between the final position and the last calculated position of the terminal which is less than a predetermined variation for determining a configuration of the robot for which the terminal (7) is situated in the final position and for delivering the generalized coordinates representative of said configuration or an information of impossibility,
• status calculating means (28) for receiving the generalized coordinates representative of the configuration of the robot for computing for each stage, the corresponding status data of the six linear actuators,
• an operating mechanism interface (30) for receiving the status data from the status calculating means (28) and the signals from the sensor system (4a, 4c) and adapted to deliver the proper magnitudes of control for controlling each of the linear actuators.