Mechatronics Design, Modelling and Controlling of the Stewart-Gough Platform

This paper presents a mechatronics design of a low-cost Stewart-Gough platform (SGP) with rotary actuators. The designed SGP is supposed to be applied in a ball & plate control system. The synthesis of the ball & plate control system is also within the subject of the paper. A mechatronics design process of the SGP was conducted with computer-aided design (CAD) software. Unique analytical solutions of an inverse kinematics problem (IKP) of the SGP were presented for both prismatic actuators and rotary actuators. Five geometry constants which affect the final range of movement of the SGP were defined. An interactive movable 3D model of the SGP was created. The 3D model was used to test a range of movement of the SGP and to detect a potential crossing of elements during their motion. A mathematical model of a ball & plate system was designed. A control synthesis was conducted with rapid control prototyping using the MATLAB environment. A prototyped and implemented control law was based on two proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers.