Abstract: A general method for the forward dynamics modeling and simulation of spatial parallel mechanisms is proposed on the basis of Newton-Euler method with generalized coordinates. The task-space variables are chosen as the generalized coordinates during the dynamics modeling. The equations of motion and reaction can be obtained from the Newton-Euler equations of all the bodies in the mechanism according to the inverse kinematics and the principle of virtual work. The 6-UPS mechanism is studied as an example to verify the validity of the method, and the forward dynamic model and the simulation results are presented. The theoretical analysis and case study show that the method can simplify the procedure of the forward dynamics modeling of spatial parallel mechanisms and improve the computational efficiency.

Key words: Forward dynamics, Generalized coordinates, Newton-Euler method, Spatial parallel mechanisms