This paper presents a parallel and partially decoupled mechanism characterized by three translational and two rotational degrees of freedom. A set of parallel kinematic chains actuates five degrees of freedom of the mobile platform and constrains one of its rotations. Its kinematics combines advantages typical of parallel architectures, as high dynamics, with positive aspects of partially decoupled ones, in terms of mechanical design, control and motion planning, through a relatively simple direct kinematic formulation. The presented architecture constitutes the mechanical heart of a robotic prototype designed to actively support the patient's head in open-skull awake surgery. © 2013 IEEE.

Advanced composite structural components in aeronautics are characterized by very high production costs because of their dimensions, complex shapes and expensive forming equipment. For these components, such as horizontal stabilizers and wings, a defect occurrence is often critical because large part of inner surfaces, made of long and tapered narrow tunnels, are not reachable for repair operations. In these cases, the part is rejected with a relevant economic loss and high production costs. For this reason, aircraft constructors plan huge investments for defects avoidance during the forming processes of CFRP and to develop effective, robust and reliable repair tools and methods. Mobile robotics can play an important role, with specific systems capable of moving into narrow channels of wings structures (i.e. multi spar boxes) and repair it in accordance to technical standards. This paper describes an innovative mobile robot architecture for bonded repair scarfing operations on CFRP components. Targeting and responding to the demanding machining requirements, the functional-oriented design approach clearly highlights the advantages of a modular robotic solution. The mobile robotic architecture can be also applied in other fields with similar challenging manufacturing operations for further inspection, detection and machining operations.

The ankle represents a fairly complex bone structure, resulting in kinematics that hinders a flawless robot assisted recovery of foot motility in impaired subjects. The paper proposes a novel device for ankle-foot neuro-rehabilitation based on a mechatronic redesign of the remarkable Agile Eye spherical robot on the basis of clinical requisites. The kinematic design allows the positioning of the ankle articular center close to the machine rotation center with valuable benefits in term of therapy functions. The prototype, named PKAnkle, Parallel Kinematic machine for Ankle rehabilitation, provides a 6-axes load cell for the measure of subject interaction forces / torques, and it integrates a commercial EMG-acquisition system. Robot control provides active and passive therapeutic exercises.

This paper presents the novel hybrid kinematic structure of the Active Headframe, a robotic head support to be employed in brain surgery operations for an active and dynamic control of the patient's head position and orientation, particularly addressing awake surgery requirements. The topology has been conceived in order to satisfy all the installation, functional and dynamic requirements. A kinetostatic optimization has been performed to obtain the actual geometric dimensions of the prototype currently being developed.