Stewart Platform

Following my experimentation with using a fully sprung camera support for the 2009 OSU Mars Rover, I became more interested in Stewart Platforms. The greatest advantage of a Stewart Platform is the simplicity at which extremely complicated motion can be generated in the three translational and three rotational degrees of freedom; the only necessary components are six actuators (one for each degree of freedom) with spherical bearings at either end, placed in non-parallel directions. This platform is easily spotted on full motion aircraft flight simulators such as the one shown below.

Specifying the actuator lengths is as simple as measuring the distance of the two mounting points when the platform is positioned as desired. By Creating a group of 6 fixed coordinates, and 6 coordinates that move through a specified set of positions, the below animation of platform movement was created (see attached m-file for MATLAB script used). The actuator lengths are easily measured, and can be used as input into an actual control system.

Attachments:

MATLAB script used to generate the plots above: Stewart_platform.m