A multistage-approach to the dynamics and control of elastic robots

Abstract

The control of an elastic robot along a reference trajectory is performed in several steps. An optimal reference path for a rigid robot is generated, taking into account any restrictions and arbitrary robot/trajectory configurations. Tracking of that path is improved by regarding the elastic influences of all links and joints. For the purpose the robot is modeled as an elastic multibody system. A control scheme is added which feeds back strain-gauge measurements at the elastic arms to damp remaining oscillations. These three stages together allow high performance control of an elastic robot, which is proven by measurements at a three-degree-of-freedom laboratory robot.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>