Experiments on reaction null-space based decoupled control of a flexible structure mounted manipulator system

The control of a dextrous manipulator mounted on a flexible structure is discussed. Using the concept of reaction null space, the manipulator dynamics is decoupled from the base dynamics. As a consequence of the decoupling, feedback control gains for structural vibration suppression and manipulator end-point control can be determined in a straightforward manner. We examine experimentally the performance of the above control tasks, using a planar experimental setup