Application of triune parallel‐serial robot system for full‐mission tank training

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to build a seven‐degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel‐serial robot system which has the advantage of mechanical novelty and simplicity compared with the existing platforms, and to share the experience of converting a popular motion base to an industrial robot for use in full‐mission tank training processes of three armored arms. Design/methodology/approach – By studying the concept of the robot system, a novel parallel‐serial robot with seven DOF driven by electrical servo motors is built. And the transmission modules and Hooke joints are explored and designed in detail. Then the inverse kinematics based on coupling compensation and time‐jerk synthetic optimization methods for trajectory planning of the simulator are presented and further discussed in order to satisfy the requirements of high stability and perfect performance. In advance, the feasibility and applicability of this triune parallel‐serial robot system are verified. Findings – A prototyped test shows that the performance of the system is of a satisfaction with real‐time tracking any trajectories given by the visual system smoothly. Finally, the characteristics of the robot system are realized and verified by experiments and an industrial application. Practical implications – The triune full‐mission tank training simulator developed in this paper has been used in the military industry and it has a great potential application. Originality/value – This successful usage of the novel and simple parallel robot system in the military industry expands the range of its applications in real‐life task more operators training. And the proposal methods of inverse kinematics based on coupling compensation and trajectory planning enhanced the theoretical research of the parallel robot.