Design and compliance experiment study of the forging simulator

Abstract

Force capability and compliance capability is the core performance of heavy forging manipulator, therefore the testing and calibration of heavy forging manipulator's these capabilities is very important. This paper presents a new forging simulator for the testing and calibration of heavy forging manipulator. The simulator has a good force capability and can reproduce working environment of forging manipulator by simulating force and movement. In this paper, firstly, a 2-DOF parallel planar mechanism is designed as the forging simulator based on the FEM simulation and kinematics analysis, and the optimal work space of the mechanism is obtained based on the dexterity, force capability and stiffness performance index. Secondly, the whole forging simulator platform is introduced, which includes the forging manipulator, the heavy force/moment sensor and the forging simulator. Finally, the compliance experiment of the simulator is done, the results show that the whole forging simulator platform is an effective approach for the testing and calibration of the heavy forging manipulator. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.