Analytical Generation of the Dynamical Equations for Mechanical Manipulators

Volume 4, Issue 4
Fall 1994

A package to generate the symbolic dynamic equations describing the relation between forces and movements for serial mechanical linkages with rigid constituents is presented. The relative movement between the rigid parts is assumed to be either a rotation about an axis or a translation along an axis. Two algorithms are implemented, a Lagrange-Euler method and a Newton-Euler method. The former can be used to solve both the inverse and the forward dynamics problems, while the latter requires fewer arithmetical operations but only allows solution of the inverse dynamics problems. Two test examples are presented, the double pendulum and the modified Stanford manipulator.