KINEMATICS AND DYNAMICS OF A 6-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM PARALLEL MANIPULATORWITH REVOLUTE LEGS

This paper presents the kinematics and dynamics of a six-degree-of-fre edom platform-type parallel manipulator with six revolute legs, i.e. e ach leg consists of two links that are connected by a revolute joint. Moreover, each leg is connected, in turn, to the base and moving platf orms by means of universal and spherical joints, respectively. We firs t introduce a kinematic model for the manipulator under study. Then, t his model is used to derive the kinematics relations of the manipulato r at the displacement, velocity and acceleration levels. Based on the proposed model, we develop the dynamics equations of the manipulator u sing the method of the natural orthogonal complement. The implementati on of the model is illustrated by computer simulation and numerical re sults are presented for a sample trajectory in the Cartesian space.