A Passivity– Based Control Case Study of Flexible– Link Manipulators

Abstract

The robotic control problem is considered from the passivity– based control point of view and a modified version of the computed torque method for rigid robots is briefly reviewed. A control strategy suitable for flexible–link robots manipulating large payloads is also presented, which effectively exploits the passivity property satisfied by a suitably defined set of inputs and outputs for the system in conjunction with an approximate model of the dynamics. Both of the above control schemes are experimentally implemented on a flexible– link, multi-joint arm in order to investigate their characteristics and provide useful insight into the control problem for flexible robots.