On the accuracy of a Stewart platform. I. The effect of manufacturing tolerances

Manufacturing tolerances, installation errors and link offsets cause deviations with respect to the nominal kinematic parameters of the platform. As a result, if the nominal values of these parameters are used within the platform control software, the resulting pose of the platform will be inaccurate. In order to evaluate the effects of the above factors on the platform accuracy, the inverse and forward kinematic problems of the actual platform model need to be solved. The authors present a numerical method for the solution of both problems and demonstrate, through simulation, the effect of the above factors on platform accuracy. The simulation results provide insight to the expected accuracy and indicate the major factors contributing to inaccuracies