Dynamics of pantograph type manipulators

The kinematics of pantograph type manipulators were studied and found to be very computationally efficient due to the decoupled kinematics of pantograph mechanisms [14]. In this paper, the dynamics of a wrist-partitioned, pantograph type manipulators are studied. Both Lagrange´s and an extended D´Alembert´s methods are used to derive the equations of motion, in applying the extended D´Alembert´s method, a special treatment of the force and moment components in free-body diagrams allows the three dimensional motion of the manipulator to be treated as a two dimensional case. This special treatment also eliminates the need of a simultaneous solution of many equations. The extended D´Alembert´s formulation is found to be more computationally efficient than the Lagrange´s. Moreover, the inverse dynamics of both methods are found to be more computationally efficient than that of a conventional open-chain manipulator.