A Study of Reactional Force Compensation Based on Three‐Degree‐of Freedom Parallel Platforms

Abstract

Abstract Reaction compensation is necessary for space robot applications because reactional forces/torques will cause undesired movement of the spacecraft. Because the reactional torques can be compensated by the existing torque balancing device in the spacecraft, an additional reaction compensating device is necessary to compensate the reactional forces. In this article we study two types of reactional force compensating devices based on three‐degree‐of freedom, parallel platforms. The first type has three R‐P‐S legs while the second type has three R‐R‐P‐S leg and a passive R‐R‐P leg. A three‐degree of freedom serial manipulator is used to generate reactional forces, which are to be compensated by the paralle platforms. The kinematics and dynamics of both platforms are analyzed and closed form inverse kinematics solutions are derived. We then design a reactional force compensating device that satisfies the strict volume constraint in a spacecraft. The first type of parallel platform is found to require very long legs due to large orientational motion at certain positions. The second type has smooth motion in both position and orientation, and therefore its size can be very compact. It is concluded that the second type of parallel platform has great potential to be used as a compact reactional force compensating device. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.