Active vibration control of flexible robots using virtual spring-damper systems (Q1306145)

This very important and useful paper investigates phenomena associated with active vibration control of flexible robots using virtual spring-damper systems. A new approach of vibration damping qualified for application to any kind of flexible robot even without an analytic model is proposed. It uses a passive design for decentralized actuator control. The actuators of the robot are controlled to act like virtual passive mechanical spring-damper-elements. The input of the controlled system is a virtual variation of the spring base. Those passive elements never destabilize a system as they only transfer and reduce the energy of the system. Thus, this control concept is very insensitive to modeling errors, and can even be applied experimentally without any modeling knowledge about a system. Basically, the two parameters, spring stiffness and damping constant of this system, are arbitrary and model independent. To satisfy performance requirements they are adjusted using a knowledge of the system model. The new input of the controlled system is a virtual variation of the spring base. Finally, the author illustrates this technique with the help of a simple and easy to model one link flexible robot which is also available as a real laboratory testbed.