A validation study of PD control of a closed-chain mechanical system

In this paper, we briefly review recent results by the authors on the formulation of the equations of motion of closed-chain mechanisms and the development of PD control strategies with guaranteed Lyapunov asymptotic stability. We then introduce and derive the equations of motion of the Rice Planar Delta Robot which was designed and built at Rice University as a test bed to perform control experiments for closed-chain mechanisms. Finally, we present simulation as well as experimental results to illustrate the successful application of PD plus simple gravity control strategy for this class of dynamical systems.