Preview tracking control of a flexible manipulator.

Abstract

Industrial robots are being used predominantly today for various purposes. By reducing the mass of the links of a robot, it is possible to improve its working speed and efficiency. Reduction in link mass, however, results in a lowering of stiffness, which causes problems such as a lack of precision in positioning due to the elastic deformation caused by gravity, or elastic vibrations. In this paper, it is shown that a smooth trajectory effectively reduces the elastic vibrations of a flexible manipulator. A preview control system presented previously is extended to a multiinput / multioutput case and is applied to the flexible manipulator to illustrate high tracking precision. Finally, the two schemes are combined to achieve precise tracking and good damping simultaneously.