Filtering Schilling manipulator commands to prevent flexible structure vibration

The remediation and management of various nuclear sites will require inspection, removal and surveillance operations within many waste storage tanks. Due to the large dimensions, many tasks will be performed with a small articulated robot mounted on a long reach manipulator. However, the motion of the small arm tends to excite the vibrational modes of the larger structure. This paper presents several applications of a finite impulse response (FIR) compensation filter within the micromanipulator's joint feedback control structure to suppress the structure's flexible behavior. Simulation results of filtering a Schilling manipulator's azimuth joint commands while mounted on the tip of a long slender beam verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies.