Dimensional synthesis of 6-DOF parallel robot for Intra-Operative Radiation Therapy

In order to meet the kinematic requirements of large range of motion, payload, and stiffness of Intra-Operative Radiation Therapy robots, a 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) parallel platform is introduced and a dimensional synthesis study is carried out. The kinematic and static stiffness models of the 6-DOF parallel robot for Intra-Operative Radiation Therapy are derived around a virtual isocentric control point. Under the premise of ensuring the positional accuracy, the optimal dimensions of the initial rod length, the radius of the upper and lower platforms, and the circumferential angle of the 6-DOF parallel platform are obtained by using the multi-objective optimization method combining the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm and the global 4criterion with the working space, stiffness, and load as the optimization objectives.. A full-size prototype was built, and experiments on payload, range of motion, modality, and harmonic response were carried out. The results show that the theoretical stiffness model has high accuracy, and the dimensional synthesized 6-DOF parallel platform can meet the clinical requirements of Intra-Operative Radiation Therapy in terms of workspace, stiffness and payload, as well as position accuracy.