COUPLED RIGID-ELASTIC MOTION OF FILAMENT-WOUND COMPOSITE ROBOTIC ARMS

This paper presents a methodology for the analysis of robotic arms con sisting of composite box-beams and rigid bodies undergoing large rotat ions. A two-node hybrid-stress sheer-flexible finite element is used i n modeling the links. The mass properties of the finite element which are required for multibody dynamic analysis are developed. A recursive formulation based on Kane's equations is used in the analysis of the multi-link system. Floating body reference frames allow the imposition of different boundary conditions and the dynamical equations contain all the nonlinear interactions between the rigid and elastic motions. Isotropic and composite spatial robotic arms of the same weight are si mulated to illustrate the improvement obtained by using composite mate rials.