Kinematic Modelling and Co-Simulation-Based Posture Control of a Solid Backfilling Support Robot for Coal Mining

The solid backfilling support robot is key equipment for intelligent backfill mining, but its dual-top-beam structure, multiple closed-loop linkages and hydraulically actuated compaction mechanism make posture representation, inverse actuator mapping and control execution strongly coupled. This study develops a unified kinematic modelling and mechanical–hydraulic-control co-simulation workflow for a ZC5160/30/50 solid backfilling hydraulic support. Closed-loop vector equations are derived for the main support mechanism, rear top-beam mechanism and compaction mechanism, and the mappings among actuator strokes, posture angles and key node positions are established. An engineering posture-index system is constructed for roof contact, support adjustment and backfilling–compaction operation. Forward and inverse kinematic modules are implemented in MATLAB/Simulink and checked using an ADAMS virtual prototype. Representative workspace sampling further shows that all 15 inverse–forward verification cases converge and satisfy actuator stroke constraints, while the residual Jacobians remain full rank with maximum condition numbers of 9.135–9.950. An ADAMS-AMESim-MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation platform is then used to evaluate actuator tracking and PID-based posture-control feasibility. The numerical comparison shows good consistency for the main rigid-body posture indices, whereas conveyor-related relative-position indices show larger deviations because the suspended conveyor motion is affected by gravity in the virtual prototype. Under two target posture cases, the top-beam and compaction-mechanism angle deviations remain within ±0.3°, and the height deviation is below 5 mm. The proposed workflow provides a simulation basis for posture perception, actuator planning and control-system design of solid backfilling support robots; the reported results should be interpreted as model-level numerical consistency and co-simulation feasibility rather than physical prototype accuracy.