Singular perturbation approach to modeling and control of flexible manipulators

This paper deals with the modeling and control of robotic manipulators with flexible link by means of singular perturbations techniques. For the sake of simplicity, only the simple case of a manipulator consisting of one flexible link rotating in the horizontal plane and clamped in a rigid base is considered. It can be shown by using perturbation methods that for a small perturbation parameter (proportional to the inverse of the square of the oscillation frequency of the first beam mode), the manipulator tends to a rigid one. We propose a control scheme based on the rigid model and taking into account the flexibility effect at the endpoint of the link. The results are illustrated by simulations