Serial metamorphic manipulator dynamics formulation implementing screw theory tools

Abstract In this work, a framework is proposed for the analytical formulation of dynamic equations for serial metamorphic manipulators using screw theory tools. The integration of structure reconfiguration is achieved in a compact and comprehensive manner. Based on the previously proposed Modular Structure Representation, additional statements are provided to strictly define the metamorphic structure assembly. To validate the precision of the extracted dynamics, two simulations are performed for paths defined in cartesian space. The generated trajectory is evaluated by comparing the dynamic matrices produced by the proposed method with those from an established dynamic modeling algorithm. Additionally, the trajectory is simulated in an open-source simulator, and the torques extracted from system dynamics are compared with the corresponding simulator torques under the same kinematic constraints.