Hexapods are very common in astronomy as a mechanism to provide a stiff mount or a precision alignment tool. Here, we present a lumped model for a general symmetric hexapod that allows us to compute the load distribution under external forces, the hexapod’s resolution, and the identification of singularity loci within the workspace. We also developed a script to analyze this parametric model, which is publicly available. We use this model to develop and design a hexapod for mid-infrared ELT imager and spectrograph, one of the extremely large telescope’s first light instruments. The designed hexapod solution can survive strict earthquake conditions that can go up to 5g, and position and align the 11 ton instrument with submillimetric and arcsecond precisions. Although the model presented is not as precise or as realistic as a finite element (FE) analysis, it provides, in a fraction of a second, a very good first approximation. Therefore, unlike FE methods, the model is able to study many geometries in a short time.

中文翻译：

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开发天文仪器对准平台的方法及其在ELT的METIS仪器上的应用

六脚架在天文学中非常常见，它是一种提供刚性安装或精密对准工具的机构。在这里，我们为一般的对称六脚架提供了一个集总模型，该模型使我们能够计算外力作用下的载荷分布，六脚架的分辨率以及工作空间内的奇异位点的标识。我们还开发了一个脚本来分析此参数模型，该脚本可公开获得。我们使用此模型开发和设计用于中红外ELT成像仪和光谱仪的六脚架，这是超大型望远镜的首批照明仪器之一。设计的六脚架解决方案可以承受高达5g的严苛地震条件，并以亚毫米级和弧秒精度定位和对准11吨仪器。尽管所提供的模型不如有限元（FE）分析那么精确或逼真，但它可以在不到一秒钟的时间内提供非常好的一阶近似值。因此，与有限元方法不同，该模型能够在短时间内研究许多几何形状。