Design for a 2-DOF Motion Platform

Paper:

Design for a 2-DOF Motion Platform

Ping-Lin Wu , Yang-Hung Chang , Chung-Shu Liao , and Wei-Hua Chieng
Department

of Mechanical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University

1001 Ta Hsueh Road, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30010, R.O.C.
E-mail: whc@cc.nctu.edu.tw

Develop Department, Injoy Motion Corporation

Datong St. 6-1, Tucheng City, Taipei County, Taiwan 236, R.O.C.
E-mail: brian@imon.com.tw
[Received January 18, 2010; accepted April 8, 2010]

This study investigates the feasibility of adopting the

2-DOF motion platform design to combine optimal
workspace and mechanical advantage, which is considered as important for low-cost simulators. A design method to optimize an objective function is presented. This method consolidates some major issues
related to workspace volume, workspace symmetry,
and actuator power requirements. Performance indices obtained from the inverse/forward kinematics
are adopted within a global optimization procedure,
GA, to determine the design spread-angle that improves the static and dynamic performance.

Keywords: motion platform, parallel manipulator, genetic algorithm, motion control

1. Introduction
Parallel manipulators have strong merits over conventional serial manipulators in terms of accuracy, velocity,
stiffness and payload capacity, and therefore are widely
adopted in industry. Parallel manipulators [14] with less
than 6-DOF (Degrees of Freedom) have recently been
widely applied in various situations, since they maintain
the inherent advantages of parallel mechanisms, and have
several other benefits such as total cost reduction in manufacturing and operations.
The performance indices of a Parallel Kinematic Machine (PKM) [5] may include the workspace [6, 7], capability of actuator, efficiency of power transmission, architecture design [812] and possibly the best accuracy
property [13].
Various studies on manipulator performance have focused on analysis of the manipulators kinematic properties represented by the Jacobian transformation. These
efforts yielded important measures and characterizations
about kinematic properties [1417] and static force capability [18].
Although parallel mechanisms have often been presented [8, 19, 20], less attention is given to the optimal
design of the manipulator for best workspace features,

Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.23 No.1, 2011

or the best mechanical advantage in motion to the rotational parallel mechanism, since the workspace features
and mechanical advantage are significant characteristics
in controlling parallel manipulators, particularly for those
applied as motion platforms.
This study analyzes the global optimization of a twoprismatic-universal-spherical || universal (2-PUS || U)
PKM for the best synthetic property of performance indices, and proposes an optimization procedure which,
through the use of global optimal searching techniques,
consolidates some of the major issues related to static
(workspace) and dynamic (actuator capability) performance. The optimal parallel manipulator design solution
is computed using the well-known global optimization algorithm, GA (Genetic Algorithm) [2123]. The performance index can be treated as a compromise between
the optimal mechanical advantage design and the optimal
workspace design by the weight of each term.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
briefly describes the architecture of the X-2 motion platform. Section 3 then illustrates the performance indices
built for the optimization. Section 4 introduces the global
optimization technique and the practical procedure for the
optimal design. Section 5 presents the experimental setups and the detailed results. Appendices A and B, and
Table 1 show the nomenclature of symbols used in this
paper. Appendices A and B, and Tables 2 and 3 show all
electrical and mechanical parameters and the kinematics
and Jacobian relations. Synthesis of the characterization
and measures into an optimization procedure is then discussed. Finally, the optimization procedure is applied to
the problem of design parameter selection for a novel two
Degree-of-Freedom (DOF) motion manipulator.

2. Problem Statement
The problem statement comprises the following parts:
(1) the introduction to the 2-DOF motion platform, X-2,
and (2) the performance indices, which are cost functions
of optimization.

19

Wu, P.-L. et al.

Symbol

Imain
p1
p2
pmax
pmin
H
c
s
t
T
V

2


i
hc

Table 1. Nomenclature.
Physical Meaning
Euler angle, yaw
Euler angle, pitch
Euler angle, roll
moment of inertia (vector)
position of slider #1
position of slider #2
maximum position of sliders
minimum position of sliders
vector, from origin to center of mass
cos()
sin()
tan()
kinetic energy
potential energy
Infinity norm of
2-norm of
vector at the coordinate with axis i
height of center of mass
gradient of
spread-angle

(a)

spherical joint C, D

upper plate

universal joints E
link 2

link 1
pole

slider 2

universal joints A, B

slider 1

(b)

Table 2. Experimental setup of mechanical system.

Specification
pmin
pmax
h


U

[Hx Hy Hz ]

U NIT
m
m
m
m
m

Value
0.203
0.2925
0.156
0.183
0.170
21 69
[0.25 0 0.5]

Table 3. Experimental setup of servo-drive system.

Specification
Rated Output
Rated Speed
Max. Speed
Rated Voltage
Rated Current
Max. Current
Rated Torque
Max. Torque
Rotor Inertia
Insulation Class F
Weight
Ambient Temp.

U NIT
kW
rpm
rpm
V
A
A
N*m
N*m
kg*m2
Class
kg
C

Value
1.5
3000
5000


3 , 200V
9.6
28.8
4.78
14.3
4.51*104
F
7
10 +40

2.1. Introduction to the 2-DOF Motion Platform,

X-2
The X-2 motion platform is designed for motion simulation with two rotational degrees of freedom (pitch and
roll). The platform comprises two pairs of screws and
sliders, which are actuated directly by servomotors, as
shown in Fig. 1(a), (b), (c), and (d).
Link 1 and link 2 are connected with the upper plate
and sliders by universal joints A, B and spherical joint C,
D, respectively. The upper plate is supported from the
pole by a universal joint E which constrains the yawing
20

(c)

(d)

Fig. 1. (a) 2-DOF motion platform, X-2; (b) a front view

of the platform; (c) motion simulator includes a cockpit
mounted on the platform; (d) sectional drawing of (c).

degree of freedom of the upper plate. The spread-angle

of the X-2 motion platform is defined as the intersection
angle between the two sliders. The spread-angle determines most of the kinematic properties of the X-2 motion
platform, which are described in Section 3. Figs. 2 and 3
respectively depict the pitch and roll motion of the X-2
motion platform. The platform pitches up and down when
the sliders both go backwards and forwards. The platform
exhibits a roll motion when one slider goes forward and
the other one goes backward.

2.2. Objective of Optimization on the X-2 Motion

Platform
The X-2 motion platform designed to perform the motion cue of reality is limited to the workspace boundary,
capability of actuator, power efficiency, and dexterity of
motion simulator. A tradeoff among these limitations is
necessary to ensure an optimal design of the motion platform. This study defines several performance indices for
the X-2 motion platform in terms of the spread-angle. The
global search algorithm, GA, is then applied to find the
optimal solution of the mechanical design numerically.
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.23 No.1, 2011