Experimental study of motion control and trajectory planning for a Stewart Platform robot manipulator

The authors present solutions for the forward and inverse kinematics of a 6-DOF Stewart Platform-based robot manipulator and develop a trajectory planning scheme for tracking the robot manipulator straight-line motion. A force/torque transformation is derived for measuring forces/torques during a part assembly using two compliant platforms which also provide passive compliance to the manipulator gripper. Results of experiments conducted to evaluate the manipulator performance showed that the manipulator can track straight lines with negligible tracking errors, and that forces/torques applied to the manipulator during the mating/demating of a space-rated connector can be measured with considerable accuracy