Variable Structure Control of a Single-Link Flexible Arm Robot

This paper is concerned with the application of the variable structure control technique for the control of a single link flexible arm robot. The assumed mode method is used to arrive at a model for the robot. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a sliding regime on any hyperplane ¿ = 0 are arrived at for a system with n degrees of freedom. The selection of the hyperplane is based on the eigenvalues to be associated with the sliding modes. The control law developed is robust and can handle small variations in parameters and small disturbances. Numerical simulation is carried out on a flexible arm robot to demonstrate the success of the variable structure control technique in controlling flexible arm robots.