Estimation of the flexural states of a macro-micro manipulator using acceleration data

The subject of this paper is a state-estimation algorithm which uses the twist data, velocity and angular velocity, of the base of a micro-manipulator, placed on the end-effector of its macro counterpart, to estimate the flexural states of the flexible links of the macro-manipulator. The twist data are inferred from the acceleration signals delivered by an accelerometer array $a kinematically redundant array of tri-axial accelerometers. The array signals can also be utilized to calculate the translational and angular accelerations of the micro-manipulator base, which are in turn used to obtain a set of dynamics equations for the macro-manipulator, thus reducing the order of the dynamics model. Next, the dynamics equations of the macro-manipulator and the state-output relations are linearized, the latter in closed form so as to lower the computational cost in a control loop. The relations thus obtained are then used in an extended Kalman filter to estimate the flexural states of the system.