Visual sensor based vibration control and end-effector control for flexible robot arms

This paper addresses the issue of measurement and control of robot arms with link flexibility. A measurement system for link flexural deflection and end-effector position sensing using CCD camera and video tracker is presented. Based on the measurement system, both link vibration suppressing control scheme and end-effector trajectory tracking control scheme are designed. Experiments for link vibration control and end-effector trajectory tracking control are carried out on a 2 link flexible robot system as the test bed. The results confirm effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed measurement method and control systems.