Application of Flexible Link Manipulators in Control Engineering Courses

Abstract

Flexible link manipulators are excellent platform to teach control engineering courses. The flexible link exhibits large vibrational amplitudes and low frequencies, which benefit student's observation and understanding of control performance. Dynamics of flexible link consist of infinite vibrational modes, while the first mode is fundamental to overall system. Students design a control system to suppress first-mode linearized vibrations for demonstrating the basic idea. Moreover, control of coupled-oscillators dynamics and infinite modes is suitable for advanced study. Both the laboratory facilities and curriculum are described in this paper. In addition, the online lectures and remote experiments for control engineering courses by using flexible link manipulators during the COVID-19 pandemic are also presented.