Abstract
Because of the structural flexibility of the flexible manipulator, the exercise of effective control is a challenging problem. Thus, the development of an effective control system must encompass consideration of the manipulator elasticities. This paper proposes a two-stage control algorithm, including (1) computer-aided trajectory scheduling to drive a hypothetical rigid-body manipulator “close” to the standards of actual flexible manipulators, and (2) a linear-state feedback controller based upon the hypothetical model. The proposed algorithm is implemented for a two-link, rigid/flexible manipulator. Based upon simplified computational requirements, comparison of the proposed procedure to those previously considered indicates that it is capable of providing effective means of control.
