Boundary sliding mode control approach to a one-link flexible beam contact force problem with boundary input disturbances

This paper investigates a contact force control problem of a one-link flexible beam with boundary input disturbances. The sliding mode control (SMC) method is adopted to design a boundary feedback controller, which only includes the signals at the drive end, such that the interference suppression can be realized and the tip end of the beam can be enabled to exert the desired force on the contacted object or environment. Moreover, the existence and uniqueness of the solution is proved and the exponentially stability is obtained by the Lyapunov method. Numerical simulations are shown to illustrate the validity of our control design.