Designing mechatronics equipment based on the example of the stewart platform

Designing specific technical equipment requires solving a number of problems that consider the theoretical structures of particular technical means. In the case of mechatronics equipment, one should take into consideration three groups of problems: designing mechanical components, designing actuators and designing a control program [1]. Moreover, it is important to properly organize the process for the purpose to obtain a coherent project linking the three above mentioned sub-systems of mechatronics equipment [2]. Only when three sub-systems are properly designed, the whole system can appropriately and effectively operate. One should mention that the design process could be analyzed not only from the perspective of the partition of the main system but also from the perspective of design, material and assembly features [1, 3]. Taking into account constraints providing for the design process, the procedures of creating the Stewart platform were followed. This platform was devised as an actuator of a car simulator [4, 5, 6, 7]. The process of designing was divided into the before introduced phases. First, the system of actuators was elaborated referring to information about the velocity and acceleration of a real car. Second, the control system was elaborated. The system was matched to the mechanical system of actuators. At the third stage, the control program was elaborated and tuned. All presented stages of the design process were computer aided so that the process of designing was conducted in virtual reality. It results in shortening the durability of the designing phase and in decreasing costs. This preparatory phase, including the realization phase, allowed preparing the real car simulator.