A novel six-dimensional disturbance force and moment simulator for simulation of space micro-vibration environment

A novel six-dimensional disturbance force and moment simulator was developed because of the lack of a suitable vibration source for use in ground experiments. First, the dynamic relationship between the disturbance force, the disturbance moment generated at the center of the simulator platform, and the excitation forces of the six uniaxial actuators was established using the equivalent principle of force system. Then, the simulator structure was introduced and a modal analysis of this structure was performed. Finally, the simulator system was tested experimentally in both single-frequency experiments and multi-frequency experiments. The results obtained showed that the maximum error between the experimental values and the target values was 2.96%, which verified the correctness of the theoretical model of the six-dimensional disturbance force and moment simulator. Additionally, the multi-dimensional micro-vibration generation performance of the new simulator was verified. The proposed six-dimensional disturbance force and moment simulator can provide a micro-vibration environment to replace the real disturbance sources used in ground experiments and solve the problems caused by the lack of a vibration source for use in ground-based experiments.