Specification of driving constraints for dynamics simulation of a parallel-serial manipulator

A practical method for specification of driving constraints for a dynamics simulation of a parallel-serial manipulator is presented. It is very hard for a dynamics engineer to specify driving constraints of a parallel-serial manipulator to obtain desired positions in space using a dynamics simulation program based on Cartesian coordinate formulation. But once the kinematics equations based on relative coordinates of a manipulator are established, one can efficiently and easily simulate its kinematics. This method combines the Cartesian coordinate and the relative coordinate formulations, taking advantage of their respective characteristics of rigorous analysis and practicability. One example parallel-serial manipulator is studied to demonstrate the practicability of the method.