Kinematics analysis and numerical simulation of a manipulator based on virtual prototyping

Manipulator kinematics refers the analytical study of the motion of manipulator, such as positions, velocities, and accelerations of the links of a manipulator. As formulating the suitable kinematics models for a manipulator is very crucial for analyzing the behavior of manipulators and light weight design of manipulators, many researches have been focused on it in recent decades with a result of many valuable contributions. However, current researches always focus on rigid manipulator, while the manipulator is always a rigid-flexible coupling multibody system, which can affect the accuracy of kinematics analysis and numerical simulation. This paper proposed a model of kinematics analysis of manipulator based on rigid-flexible coupling virtual prototyping. After a model of manipulator kinematics based on the D-H method was proposed, rigid-flexible coupling virtual prototyping-based kinematics simulation and numerical simulation was then put forward. The kinematical experiment is carried out based on manipulator physical prototyping, which demonstrates that the accuracy of the kinematics calculation and the rationality of design based on rigid-flexible coupling virtual prototyping. The design of a five-degrees-of-freedom manipulator is given as an example, which demonstrates that the methodology is obviously helpful to manipulator design.