| Flexure jointed Gough-Stewart platforms (GSPs) are great candidates for micro-precision applications, such as micro-manipulation, multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) active and passive vibration isolation, MDOF high precision motion control, and fault tolerant vibration isolation and motion control. This dissertation investigates the realization and optimization methods of GSP platforms to obtain desired kinematics and dynamics. The fundamental technology underlying the hexapod are extended to N-DOF GSPs. There are four major contributions to the research of flexure jointed GSPs. First, a geometric approach to generate a new class of weighted orthogonal GSPs is developed, which offers the flexibility to achieve desired dynamics. Second, through proposing the simultaneously diagonal orthogonal GSPs (sd-OGSPs) and formulating the Cartesian second order impedance problem, synthesizing a GSPs geometry to meet desired dynamic specifications is realized. Optimal design algorithms are proposed, and several sd-OGSP design examples are given. Third, a new modified multi-objective optimization technique based on heuristic mutation is proposed, and the passive parameter optimization problems are solved. The maximum vibration isolation in the University of Wyoming flexure jointed hexapod is realized. The results produced by this new approach are compared to those produced by other practical selection techniques, proving that this technique is more flexible. Finally, the nonlinear dynamic models of flexure jointed hexapods are proposed and numerically realized. Through comparison to the linear model and experimental analysis, the advantages and disadvantages of both models are described. |
