Control of flexible robotic arms, 1

Dynamic characteristics and control methods of a flexible robotic arm of first degree of freedom system are shown based on modelling a flexible arm as an elastic beam. Vibrations of the arm in positioning can be suppressed by the dynamic compensation with consideration of the arm flexibility, which current robotic arms have more or less in manipulating payloads. Subsequently, a control method of a SCARA type of a second degree of freedom system is shown based on the local feedback with variable adaptive gains to suppress vibrations in positioning control. In case of arm collisions against other objects, a control method to recover the state before collision is also shown as an application. The control methods proposed here are not limited to this special type of robotic arms, but also more general cases. (author)