Phenomenological Modeling and End-Point Trajectory Tracking Control of a Flexible Beam with Pneumatic Soft Actuators

As the basic construction of flexible mechanical systems, the flexible beam and its control problem have attracted widespread attention in recent years. This paper takes a flexible beam with pneumatic soft actuators (FBPSA) as the research object and studies its phenomenological modeling and end-point trajectory tracking control strategy. Firstly, we develop an experimental platform for the FBPSA and perform tests on it, gathering its input and output data. Using these collected data, we analyzed the motion characteristics of the FBPSA. Subsequently, a phenomenological model is established to describe the motion characteristics of the system, and the parameters of this model are identified through a large amount of the collected experimental data. Then, a combined feedforward-feedback control strategy is proposed to achieve the end-point trajectory tracking control of the system. Finally, three sets of experiments are carried out to verify the accuracy of the established model and the effectiveness and superiority of the control strategy.