DEVELOPMENT OF MULTI-AXIS MICROVIBRATION ISOLATOR BASED ON STEWART PLATFORM

Abstract

High pointing stability is required for successful satellite missions. Microvibration generated from satellite's equipment (e.g. RWA, CMG) is the main factor that reduces its pointing stability. To deal with this problem, vibration isolator for the satellite equipment must be capable of responding to small displacements and is required to have high isolation performance. This paper proposes a multi-axis microvibration isolator based on Stewart platform to isolate the microvibration of CMG. Single-axis three parameter microvibration isolator made of bellows and viscous fluid was developed to realize frictionless element and high isolation performance. Force transmissibility of Stewart platform microvibration isolator was analysed for various configurations to find appropriate configuration for CMG vibration characteristics and reduce coupling occurring in multi-axis vibration isolator. An alternative configuration was proposed to reduce coupling and increase isolation performance compared to the cubic configuration that is widely used in Stewart platform based microvibration isolator. In addition, design and performance analysis of the multi-axis vibration isolator with proposed configuration was performed. As a result, the proposed configuration showed higher isolation performance than the cubic configuration and isolated more than 95% of the microvibration generated from CMG.