Exponential trajectory tracking control in the workspace of a class of flexible robots

Abstract

In this paper, we present a control strategy that ensures the exponential stability of the tracking error in the virtual joint space of a class of mechanical systems made up of rigid links that form a chain that ends with a flexible beam. Virtual joints are defined so as to be related kinematically to the workspace. Thus, when the inverse kinematics is nonsingular, trajectory tracking in the virtual joint space is equivalent to trajectory tracking in the workspace. The method proposed in this paper calls for the transformation of the trajectory from the virtual joint space to the joint and deformation space. The robot is a non-minimum-phase system in the virtual joint space. However, this transformation, which involves the dynamics of the flexible part, can be solved using a causal–anticausal iterative approach. The controller is then designed using an input–output feedback linearization scheme, with regard to the joints, and two linear control laws with regard to the joint and to the deformation variable tracking errors. Analysis based on the passivity theorem, hierarchical systems stability, and linear matrix inequalities then allows us to determine the controller gains that ensure that the tracking errors in the virtual joint space are well damped and exponentially stable. Finally, the strategy is validated by simulating a controller that incorporates the proposed laws and that drives a two-link manipulator that has one rigid and one flexible link. The simulation results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed control system. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.