Regulation of flexible arms under gravity

Abstract

A simple controller is presented for the regulation problem of robot arms with flexible links under gravity. It consists of a joint PD feedback plus a constant feedforward. Global asymptotic stability of the reference equilibrium state is shown under a structural assumption about link elasticity and a mild condition on the proportional gain. The result holds also in the absence of internal damping of the flexible arm. A numerical case study is presented.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>