Control and motion cues generation of Stewart platform with a DSP based controller

This paper presents an application of the digital signal processor, DSP, to the Stewart motion platform which is a popularly used parallel mechanism in the virtual reality motion simulator for entertainments and various training facilities. The study is conducted in a rapid-prototyping concept which can reduce the time and cost during the development. With a graphical user interface environment, the procedures and results become more transparent and easier to engineers while the results are satisfactory compared with those produced by the traditional motion control hardware in the IPC based controller. The present work is developed based on the hardware-in-the-loop graphical control design and analysis software with inverse-kinematics and motion cues generation algorithm built as function blocks. The resulting motions and simulated accelerations were then measured and correlated with traditional approaches. This present work shows promising DSP application to the Stewart motion platform in the view of time, cost, maintenance and functionality.