Dynamics Algorithms for Multibody Systems

This paper presents dynamics algorithms for multibody systems using the concepts of kinematic modules and Decoupled Natural Orthogonal Complement (DeNOC) matrices. A multibody system is treated as open-loop serial- or tree-type consisting of several modules, where each module consists of one or more than one serially connected links. In fact, it is shown how the knowledge for a serial system can be extended to a module of a tree-type system. The resulting equations are used to obtain recursive inverse and forward dynamics algorithms at inter- and intra-modular levels The methodology is illustrated using a tree-type four Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) robotic gripper and 100-DOF serial- type rope system. It is also shown howefficiency of the proposed algorithm benefits as the DOF of a system becomes very large.