Adaptive control to minimize shock in bang/bang systems

An adaptive bang-bang control framework for reduction of shock in industrial manipulators is presented. On/off control is replaced by adaptive on/off control to introduce damping of system dynamics. The approach is especially useful in situations where equipment is being controlled by logic controllers. The methods presented can be implemented without modification to existing on/off control programs. Noise, shock, and vibration in the factory are reduced, and equipment life is increased. Numerical simulations indicate that simple gradient descent algorithms admit a reduction in system shock by at least an order of magnitude. It is believed that the proposed algorithms can be implemented in smart actuators.<>