An optimal switched compensation controller for flexible-link manipulators

A control strategy for trajectory tracking of the tips of the flexible-link manipulators is presented. The control law utilizes only easily obtainable quantities: joint angles and their rates, endpoint deflections of each link and their rates. The control law is an optimal switching rule between a conventional PD controller and a new nonlinear controller, which is developed for the planar, multi-link elastic manipulator case. The stability of the controller is proved using La Salle´s theorem. The results are compared with a conventional PD controller for a single-link flexible manipulator. The simulation results indicate that the proposed controller performs much better than the conventional PD controller with the same proportional and differential gain set