Impulsive Actuation in Robot Manipulators: Experimental Verification of Pendubot Swing-Up

There are many benefits of using impulsive actuation in dynamical systems; therefore, control systems with impulsive inputs have been widely investigated. All of these investigations, however, have been theoretical in nature and few have reported experimental implementation. This paper discusses continuous-input approximations of impulsive forces in robot manipulators and their implementation in a simple pendulum (one-link robot) using an electric motor. The insights gained from the pendulum experiments are used to implement an existing algorithm for swing-up of the pendubot based on impulsive forces. The experimental results validate the swing-up algorithm but, more importantly, establish the feasibility of using impulsive inputs for robots and other electromechanical systems.