Stability analysis of mechanisms having unpowered degrees of freedom

Abstract

SUMMARYThe stability analysis of active spatial mechanisms comprising both powered and unpowered joints is carried out for the first time using aggregation-decomposition method via Lyapunov vector functions. This method has already been used for analysis of mechanisms with all powered joints. To extend the application of the method to the stability analysis of mechanisms containing unpowered joints we developed modelling of special subsystem consisting of one powered and one unpowered joint. Then, we consider the stability of the complete system without neglecting any dynamic effect. The stability analysis is demonstrated by a numerical example of a particular biped system.