A new lumping method of a flexible manipulator

In this paper, a new lumped-parameter dynamic model is presented for a flexible manipulator system. Motivated by the finite element method and the associated modal analysis, the distributed system is lumped to a cascade system of weightless linear angular springs and concentrated point masses. It is shown that, with the increment of the number of equivalent springs and concentrated masses, the lumped dynamic model provides an improving accuracy in reflecting the dominant dynamic behaviour of the original system. This is verified in terms of comparison of time and frequency domain responses between the new model and the generally used assumed modes model