Minimum-time control of flexible joints with input and output constraints

The paper proposes a linear programming approach to the feedforward minimum-time control of flexible joints. Taking into account both input and output constraints, the optimal bang-bang control is computed by discretizing a continuous-time joint model and by solving a sequence of linear programming feasibility problems. The resulting joint motion is a smooth rest-to-rest motion without oscillations. Experimental results illustrate the proposed open-loop technique.