Closed-form control oriented model of highly flexible manipulators

• Published in: Applied Mathematical Modelling Vol. 52; pp. 174 - 185
• Main Authors: Scaglioni, Bruno, Bascetta, Luca, Baur, Marco, Ferretti, Gianni
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Inc 01.12.2017; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: 3-D technology; Closed form model; Closed form solutions; Computer simulation; Control systems design; Deformation; Dynamics; Eulers equations; Exact solutions; Finite element analysis; Flexible manipulators; Flexible multibody; Manipulator control; Mathematical analysis; Mathematical models; Newton Euler model; Software; Studies; Substructures; Flexible manipulators; Newton Euler model; Flexible multibody; Closed form model; Manipulator control; Dynamics
• ISSN: 0307-904X; 1088-8691; 0307-904X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apm.2017.07.034

•A closed-form dynamic model of highly flexible 3D manipulators with links of arbitrary shape is proposed.•In order to account for large deformations a substructuring method is formulated.•The data describing the links flexibility are obtained as result of a FE preprocessing stage.•The model is validated by comparison with experimental results and multibody software.•An integral manifold model, suitable for the design of advanced control systems is finally derived. This paper first presents a highly flexible 3D manipulator with links of arbitrary shape, then develops a closed-form dynamic model that best describes it. The model is based on a Newton–Euler formulation and the substructuring method is used to account for large deformations. The formulation of the motion equations starts from a data set which can be either analytically or numerically computed by finite elements(FE) codes. Simulation has been used to validate the model and compare the results with those of two different multibody software and one experimental, which was obtained from the Multi-Elastic-Link Robot Identification Dataset (MERIt), developed by the TU Dortmund. Then, thanks to the approach here adopted, an integral manifold model is derived, suitable for advanced control system design.