Vibration suppression control of flexible arms by using a strain feedback with low-pass filter

Flexible arms with light-weight and low-stiffness vibrate easily. So vibration suppression control is necessary to acquire fast response. As one solution for the vibration suppression, strain feedback has been used, where a strain gage is put on the root of the flexible arm. However, the larger the strain feedback gain is, the slower the motor position response is, so there is a trade-off between effect of the vibration suppression and speed of the motor position response. This paper shows that high performance flexible arm control is possible by the strain feedback with a low-pass filter. Moreover, a disturbance observer makes the system robust against disturbance.