MANIPULATORS WITH SLEWING AND DEPLOYABLE LINKS: A GENERAL ORDER-N FORMULATION WITH APPLICATIONS

A relatively general order-N, O(N), Lagrangian formulation for a novel mobile, flexible manipulator with slewing and deployable links is developed. It accounts for interactions between orbital, librational, slewing, deployment, and vibrational degrees of freedom in three dimensions. Validity of the formulation and numerical code are assessed though conservation of the system energy in absence of dissipation. Finally, a parametric study with a twolink manipulator explores dynamic interactions as affected by the system mass ratio, which has implications during performance of gross and fine manipulation tasks. The versatile and numerically efficient character of the formulation makes it quite attractive for application to a wide variety of chain geometry manipulators operating in three dimensions.