Decentralized vibration control of a voice coil motor-based Stewart parallel mechanism: Simulation and experiments

In pursuit of a better working performance of the precise instruments equipped in spacecraft, vibration control systems are essential for preventing them from being disturbed. This paper studies the decentralized vibration control problems of a voice coil motor-based Stewart parallel mechanism. The Newton-Euler Method is used to formulate the dynamical equations of the Stewart platform in joint space. The decentralized control theory is employed to design the controller for the linearized system. A prototype of the voice coil motor-based Stewart platform was designed and tested to validate the vibration attenuation performance of the decentralized system. The effectiveness of active vibration isolation system is revealed by both the simulation and real-time experiments.