Self-Excited Vibration Analysis for the Feed Support System in FAST

China is currently building the largest single dish radio telescope in the world, which is called the Five-hundred meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). The feed support system in the FAST is composed of a cable-driven parallel manipulator, an A-B rotator, and a Stewart platform. Since the stiffness of the cable-driven parallel manipulator is low, the feed support system is prone to vibrate under the action of the Stewart platform. The main purpose of this paper is to study the self-excited vibration of the feed support system. Self-excited vibration involves the natural frequencies of the system and the resultant forces produced by the motion of the Stewart platform. This paper linearizes the dynamic equations of the system at an operating point and determines the configuration-dependent natural frequencies in the given workspace. This paper obtains the resultant forces from the legs due to the motion of the Stewart platform by using the numerical method. According to the natural frequencies and the resultant forces, the condition of self-excited vibration is given and verified by simulations. In order to verify the linearization method, an experimental platform of a cable-driven parallel manipulator is set up. The experimental results match well with the theoretical arithmetic. This paper provides a reference point for further studies on vibration suppression in the FAST.