A novel architecture for a parallel Schönflies motion generator was recently proposed, consisting of a CRRHHRRC linkage. The novelty of this architecture lies in its simplicity, as it comprises only two limbs, thereby forming a single-loop closed kinematic chain. Reported in this paper is a realization of this architecture, intended for the production of a proof-of-concept prototype. The realization includes an innovative actuator mechanism, which is based on two-degree-of-freedom cylindrical joints. Moreover, its moving plate is coupled to the two limbs by means of corresponding coaxial H pairs. The paper focuses on the kinematics and singularity analysis of this robot, intended for fast pick-and-place operations. The prototype is currently under development at McGill University’s Centre for Intelligent Machines.

A floating offshore wind turbine platform supporting a 2MW downwind-type turbine was successfully installed offshore of Kabashima Island, Goto city, Nagasaki prefecture, Japan on October 18, 2013. It has been operating since October 28, 2013 as the first grid-connected multi-megawatt floating wind turbine in Japan. The spar platform has a unique feature, that is, the upper part of the spar is made of steel (as usual) but the lower part is made of precast prestressed concrete (PC). Such a configuration is referred to as hybrid-spar. In this paper, the design methodology of the hybrid spar is presented — including environmental design conditions, DLCs (Design Load Cases), dynamic analysis, fatigue analysis, etc. Also, the installation procedure is presented briefly.

A novel parallel mechanism which enlarges the workspace by singularity-free mode changes is proposed. The proposed mechanism has inherited the design of Linear DELTA, three translational degree-of-freedom and the moving plate driven by three linear actuators. In addition, the mechanism is extended by redundant actuation by four linear actuators and asymmetric design. New criterions about redundancy and singularity of redundantly actuated parallel mechanism using summation and product of determinants of minor matrices of the transposed Jacobian matrix are proposed. Redundant actuation and asymmetric design enables singularity-free mode changes with loss redundancy but maintains non-singularity, which is evaluated by the proposed criterions. Numerical simulations demonstrate the singularity-free mode changes of the proposed mechanism.