The 60th European Study Group with Industry Report on the Stewart platform problem

T. Charters, R. EnguiƧa, P. Freitas

Abstract


A Stewart platform, also known as a hexapod positioner, is a parallel manipulator using an octahedral assembly of struts. There are six independently actuated legs, where the lengths of the legs are changed to position and orient the platform.

The purpose of this study was to consider the following problems:

1. The forward kinematics problem: given the leg lengths, find the position and orientation, velocity and acceleration of the platform.

2. The inverse kinematics problem: given the position and orientation, velocity and acceleration of the platform obtain the legs lengths dynamics.

3. Provide methods to determine conditions ensuring that there are no architectural singularities for a given platform.

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