Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2022
Optimal mechanical design, model-based control, and robot dynamic calibration mainly rely on the analytical formulation of robot dynamics. In this paper, the kinematics equations of a general 3-UPU translational parallel manipulator (TPM) are derived, and then, by using the principle of the virtual work theorem, the full implicit dynamic model is derived. Furthermore, by making some modifications, the explicit dynamic formulation of the robot is attained, which is the basis of a wide range of advanced model-based controllers. To validate the proposed formulation, a prototype of the 3-UPU TPM is modeled in MSC-ADAMS® software, and the results of the dynamic formulation are validated using this model. The results show the high accuracy of the proposed dynamic formulation presented in this article.