Stiffness analysis and control of a Stewart platform-based manipulator with decoupled sensor-actuator locations for ultra-high accuracy positioning under large external loads

Robot frame compliance has a large negative effect on the global accuracy of the system when large external forces/torques are exerted. This phenomenon is particularly problematic in applications where the robot is required to achieve ultra-high (micron level) accuracy under very large external loads, e.g. in biomechanical testing and high precision machining. To ensure the positioning accuracy of the robot in these applications, the authors proposed a novel Stewart platform-based manipulator with decoupled sensor-actuator locations. The unique mechanism has the sensor locations fully decoupled from the actuator locations for the purpose of passively compensating for the load frame compliance, as a result improving the effective stiffness of the manipulator in six degrees of freedom. In this paper, the stiffness of the proposed manipulator is quantified via a simplified method, which combines both an analytical model (robot kinematics error model) and a numerical model (finite element analysis model) in the analysis. This method can be used to design systems with specific stiffness requirements. In the control aspect, the non-collocated positions of the sensors and actuators lead to a sub-optimal control structure, which is addressed in the paper using a simple Jacobian-based decoupling method under both kinematics-based and dynamics-based control. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed manipulator configuration has an effective stiffness that is increased by a factor of greater than 15 compared to a general design. Experimental results show that the Jacobian-based decoupling method effectively increases the dynamic tracking performance of the manipulator by 25% on average over a conventional method.