End-Point Regulation of a Flexible Robotic Manipulator under the Unknown Spatiotemporally Varying Disturbance

Abstract In this paper, the end-point regulation problem is investigated for a flexible robotic manipulator under the spatiotemporally varying disturbance. By using the Hamilton's principle, the dynamics of the flexible robotic manipulator are represented by one partial differential equation (PDE) and five ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Boundary control is developed to drive the manipulator to the desired set-point and simultaneously suppress the vibrations of the flexible link. Considering the unknown spatiotemporally varying disturbance, the developed boundary control schemes achieve uniform boundedness of the steady state error between the boundary payload and the desired position. Simulations are provided to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed control.