It is an important work to design a weapon manipulator to satisfy the tactical needs for the military unmanned ground vehicles (MUGV). In this work, the RRR and 6-SPS mechanisms are proposed to design a weapon manipulator. The design factors for the weapon manipulator to satisfy the tactical needs are also discussed. According to the direct and inverse position analysis methods, the workspace analysis results show that these two mechanisms have better performances in satisfying the tactical needs than the RR and RPR mechanisms. The gradability performance is also discussed to verify that the proposed mechanisms can achieve a good performance. The analysis results can provide a reference resource for designers to design a weapon manipulator for MUGV.
Military unmanned ground vehicles, MUGV, weapon manipulator, gradability performance
