Coupled rigid-elastic motion of filament-wound composite robotic arms Original Research Article

This paper presents a methodology for the analysis of robotic arms consisting of composite box-beams and rigid bodies undergoing large rotations. A two-node hybrid-stress shear-flexible finite element is used in modeling the links. The mass properties of the finite element which are required for multibody dynamic analysis are developed. A recursive formulation based on Kaneʹs equations is used in the analysis of the multi-link system. Floating body reference frames allow the imposition of different boundary conditions and the dynamical equations contain all the nonlinear interactions between the rigid and elastic motions. Isotropic and composite spatial robotic arms of the same weight are simulated to illustrate the improvement obtained by using composite materials.