Dynamic modeling and analysis of a parallel manipulator using Simulink and SimMechanics

In order to do a sufficient validation and analysis of the dynamic model of a 6-DOF parallel manipulator and improve the efficiency of the dynamic model and analysis, two computer-aided methods for dynamic modelling in a Simulink environment and SimMechanics environment were proposed. The 6-DOF parallel manipulator was described as a single rigid body using the Kane method to establish the single rigid body dynamic model along with the joint space control law to design a classic proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, and the simulation was carried out in Simulink and SimMechanics. The dynamic responses of the 6-DOF parallel manipulator in the two kinds of simulation environment are completely consistent, which proves that both of the two dynamic models using Simulink and SimMechanics are correct. Moreover, the proposed method can also be applied to all mechanical systems for dynamics modelling and analysis.