Flexibility control of elastic robotic arms and its application to contouring control

In this paper, the following three topics are dealt with : (i) vibration control method of flexible robotic arms in precise positioning control to suppress bending vibrations during and after rotation of arms, based on the hybrid model, where an arm is simply modelled as an elastic beam, including aspects of actuator energy input and control performance, (ii) application of elastic arms to contouring control with constant contact force, as an example of force feedback control, (iii) a simple method of reliable control system structure on the basis of the fault tolerant configuration, employing dual processor control system and fault detection system for the safety and the reliability of robotic operations, and finally those experimental results in simplified models, based on the results obtained in the above.