Computational Simulations and Experiments on Vibration Control of a Flexible Two-link Manipulator Using a Piezoelectric Actuator

The purposes of this research are to formulate the equations of motion of a flexible two-link system, to develop computational codes by a finite-element method in order to perform dynamics simulations with vibration control, to propose an effective control scheme and to confirm the calculated results by experiments of a flexible two-link manipulator. The system used in this paper consists of two aluminum beams as flexible links, two clamp-parts, two servo motors to rotate the links and a piezoelectric actuator to control vibration. Computational codes on time history responses, FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) processing and eigenvalues eigenvectors analysis were developed to calculate the dynamic behavior of the links Furthermore, a control scheme using a piezoelectric actuator was designed to suppress the vibration. A proportional-derivative (PD) control was designed and demonstrated its performances. The system and the proposed control scheme were confirmed through experiments. The calculated and experimental results revealed that the vibration of the flexible two-link manipulator can be controlled effectively.