ANALYTICAL GENERATION OF THE DYNAMICAL EQUATIONS FOR MECHANICAL MANIPULATORS (REPRINTED FROM MATHEMATICA JOURNAL, VOL 4, PG 67-73, 1994)

A package to generate the symbolic dynamic equations describing the re lation between forces and movements for serial mechanical linkages wit h rigid constituents is presented. The relative movement between the r igid parts is assumed to be either a rotation about an axis or a trans lation along an axis. Two algorithms are implemented, a Lagrange-Euler method and a Newton-Euler method. The former can be used to solve bot h the inverse and the forward dynamics problems, while the latter requ ires fewer arithmetical operations but only allows solution of the inv erse dynamics problem. Two test examples are presented, the double pen dulum and the modified Stanford manipulator.