Dynamical couplings reduction for rigid manipulators using generalized velocity components

A method for evaluation and reduction of dynamical couplings between the links of a rigid serial manipulator is presented. The approach is based on the first-order equations of motion expressed in terms of the generalized velocity components (GVC). The GVC obtained from decomposition of the manipulator mass matrix reflect the dynamics of the system. In order to reduce the dynamical couplings several criteria and indexes are introduced. As a result of the reduction, the time response of the system with a controller is improved. Moreover, the joint applied torques, the Coriolis and the gravitational term forces, and the kinetic energy are reduced too. The proposed method is tested via simulation on a spatial manipulator with three degrees of freedom.