An approach to variable structure control of a flexible-link manipulator

A variable structure controller was designed for the trajectory tracking of a flexible-link manipulator. The tip position, which is the controlled variable, was decomposed into rigid and flexible parts, thus resulting in two switching surfaces. The VSS technique ensured the system was always stable in the Lyapunov sense. The controller was successfully implemented on an experimental single-link manipulator, and acceptable tracking results were obtained.