Nonlinear dynamic model of a flying manipulator with two revolute joints and two highly flexible links is obtained using Hamilton's principle. Flying base of the manipulator is a rigid body. Stress is treated three dimensionally in the isotropic linearly-elastic links, but the in-plane and out-of-plane warpings of the links' cross-sections are neglected. Although the links' cross-sections undergo negligible elastic orientation, their models are more accurate than a nonlinear 3D EulerBernoulli beam. Tension, compression, twisting and spatial deflections of each link are coupled to each other by some nonlinear terms including two new ones. In the issue of flying flexible-link manipulators new terminologies, namely forward/ inverse kinetics instead of forward/inverse kinematics are suggested, since determination of position and orientation of the end-effector is coupled to the partial differential motion equations.

This article represents the features and capabilities of a newly developed application namely MASS (Mechanisms Analysis and Simulation Software) and the formulation and techniques therein. MASS is a general C++ application program whose main task is to construct and solve the governing algebraic differential motion equations of 3D multibody systems automatically in matrix forms complying with the computational algorithms required for numerical simulation. Newton-Raphson and SVD methods have been used for kinematical assembling and producing consistent initial conditions. Adaptive time-step Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg numerical integration methods might be used for forward dynamics problems. The governing equations perfectly describe the kinematics and dynamics of multibody systems within which 3D kinematical joints and collisions between rigid bodies might be taken into consideration. The unified computational technique for mathematical modeling of kinematical joints is the most important concept on top of which MASS has been implemented. It has occurred due to the existence of thirteen basic kinematical constraint equations. Each kinematical joint might be defined by a set of algebraic equations being selected from the mentioned basic equations. The unified dynamic models for collisions and impulsive loads have been also achieved using the mentioned technique. Simulation results obtained from MASS have been compared with that of the corresponding software of Working Model ver. 6 and a discussion about the coincidences and differences has been exposed.