Adaptive control of mixed rigid/flexible joint robot manipulators based on virtual decomposition

A modular approach, named virtual decomposition, is applied to adaptive control of robot manipulators with mixed rigid/flexible joints. First, the held object (payload) is decomposed from the manipulator. Then the manipulator is further decomposed into a series of rigid links and rigid/flexible joints. For each subsystem (rigid body or rigid/flexible joint), independent control design and parameter adaptation are performed, and a non-negative accompanying function is assigned. The dynamic interactions between the subsystems are completely represented by virtual power flows. Both a rigid joint and a flexible joint have the same dynamic interactions with their connected links. Lyapunov asymptotic stability is guaranteed. Finally, simulation verification is conducted.