Feedforward and feedback control of a flexible robotic arm

Feedforward and feedback control strategies are applied to a servo-driven flexible structure and studied by time-domain computer simulations. Simulation results are compared to the results of experimental runs on a flexible arm apparatus. The most accurate and stable responses of the arm are obtained by adding corrective terms to the command signals when position feedback is taken only from the servo. Full conditioning of the command signal, which involves compensating for the dynamics of both the servo and the arm, produced the best response. Simulations and experiments show that positional and accelerometric feedback, combined with a proportional-derivative element acting on the position error, is a viable solution in the less stable situation when feedback is being taken only from the manipulator.<>