Abstract: Target-positioning system (TPS) is one of the important subsystems of the target area of the laser facility for ignition confinement fusion (ICF). However, TPS shows to have kinematic coupling problem in target alignment. To solve this problem, the kinematic model of the TPS is constructed and theoretical explanation of why TPS is kinematic coupled is given. And an “incremental” position & orientation control method (IPOCM) is proposed which is independent of target types and much of practical use. A matrix identification method is then proposed to obtain the orientation matrix that will be used in IPOCM. Simulations are performed to verify the matrix identification method and the IPOCM, considering constraint conditions of two key aspects of the TPS, the measurement capability of the target sensor and the positioning capability of the 6-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulator. Simulation results show that IPOCM is able to effectively solve the kinematic coupling problem of the TPS, and that IPOCM has the capability of high precision position control under the condition that the expected position increment of the target is no more than a certain value ( 2 mm for example ).

Key words: ignition confinement fusion(ICF), kinematic coupling, laser facility, target position system