Sliding-Mode/Shaped-Input Control of Flexible/Rigid Link Robots

A controller for a flexible/rigid link robot is designed using the sliding-mode and shaped-input concepts. The controller for the rigid body motion is designed to serve two purposes: it forces the state trajectory onto a preselected sliding surface and then guides it to the state space origin. The shaped-input controller is designed for the control of the flexible motion which requires information about the natural frequency and damping of the linearized system. This information is used to discretize the input so that minimum energy is injected via the controller to the flexible modes of the structure. The controller is tested successfully on an experimental flexible link robot.