SYSTEMATIC METHODS FOR EFFICIENT MODELING AND DYNAMICS COMPUTATION OF FLEXIBLE ROBOT MANIPULATORS

Systematic methods for efficient modeling and dynamics computation of flexible robot manipulators are developed by using the Lagrangian assumed modes method. The proposed methods can make the number of mathematical operations (i.e., multiplications and additions) required for the modeling and dynamics computation of flexible manipulators greatly reduced. The methods can be applied to the design and analysis of the control systems and the dynamic simulation for flexible robot manipulators. In the proposed methods, the link deflection is described by a truncated modal expansion. The operations of 3 x 3 matrices and/or 3 x 1 vectors only exist in the methods. All the dynamics computations are performed in the link coordinate systems, and in which the kinematics informations are computed with the forward recursion from the base to the hand tip and the dynamics informations are computed with the return recursion. As compared with other existing methods, the methods proposed in the paper are, computationally, more simple, systematic, and efficient. Simulation results for a single-link flexible robot manipulator are presented to verify the methods or the algorithms proposed.