Control experiments on a two-link robot with a flexible forearm

Abstract

A lightweight robot has been built with the aim of testing advanced control algorithms and demonstrating the engineering feasibility of flexible arm control. The robot is a planar two-link manipulator, with revolute joints and a very flexible forearm. A description of this laboratory facility is given, including mechanical structure, actuators and sensors, and interface electronics. A nonlinear dynamic model of the robot is given, in which link deflection is expressed in terms of orthonormal mode shapes of the associated eigenvalue problem. Simple control algorithms are presented, which are composed of a model-based feedforward term plus a linear feedback. These controllers have been implemented for joint trajectory tracking, and comparative experimental results are reported and discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>