Adaptive controller design for two-link flexible manipulator

Abstract

Flexible Link Manipulator Systems (FLMs) have numerous advantages when compared to the rigid link manipulator such as their light weight, ease of manipulation, low energy consumption, faster manipulation and so on. Controlling such system poses many difficulties due to the distributed nature of the system. In this chapter, direct adaptive control is designed based on a hybrid Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control system for two-link flexible manipulator. The adaptive control algorithm is simple with less computational load and also very efficient. The control law is tested in Matlab/Simulink environment. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is studied with step input signal and square wave input signal, white noise disturbance, and sine wave disturbance. The results show that the proposed adaptive control law is effective and robust to the disturbances. The results are presented and discussed in detail. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.