SUMMARY
It is an important work to design a weapon manipulator to satisfy the tactical needs for the militaryunmanned ground vehicles (MUGV). In this work, the RRR and 6-SPS mechanisms are proposed to designa weapon manipulator. The design factors for the weapon manipulator to satisfy the tactical needs are alsodiscussed. According to the direct and inverse position analysis methods, the workspace analysis results showthat these two mechanisms have better performances in satisfying the tactical needs than the RR and RPRmechanisms. The gradability performance is also discussed to verify that the proposed mechanisms can achievea good performance. The analysis results can provide a reference resource for designers to design a weaponmanipulator for MUGV.Defence Science Journal, 2008, 58(5), pp.664-677, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.58.1690