Dynamic modeling and control of a 6-DOF micro-vibration simulator

•A 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) micro-vibration simulator (6-MVS) is proposed.•The dynamics equations, which consider the effect of the flexure joints, are derived.•A robust proportional-integral control scheme is carried out.

A micro-vibration simulator with multiple degrees of freedom is required for performance testing of sensitive instruments in a micro-vibration environment on-board spacecraft before launch. In this study, a novel 6-DOF micro-vibration simulator (6-MVS) is proposed, which can reproduce a micro-vibration environment with a wide bandwidth of disturbance frequencies. The complete inverse dynamic equations of the proposed 6-MVS are derived using the Kane method, which is very suitable for processing by computer. The validity of the derived dynamic equations is then verified by co-simulation. The structural performance of the 6-MVS is investigated using the finite element method. Based on this dynamic model, a robust proportional-integral (PI) control scheme is then performed. The control performance of the proposed controller is evaluated by co-simulation. The analysis and simulation results show that the proposed robust PI controller has excellent robustness and stability and the 6-MVS can exactly produce the required micro-vibration spectrum.