A soft-actuator active hexapod for the purpose of vibration isolation

Active vibration isolation is becoming one of the most demanded processes to clean the environment containing sensitive equipment from vibrations; as future astronomic missions and equipment will require more and more stringent resolution requirements. Several methods exist to reduce vibration levels: the first consists in isolating the sensitive system from the perturbation and the second in damping the structure vibration modes. For the purpose of vibration isolation, a Stewart platform has been designed, manufactured and tested at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). This soft hexapod provides 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) active isolation. The actuators, the flexible joints and the flexure guiding ( membrane) are considered the key words in the accurate design of such a hexapod to assure high performance in vibration isolation.