A Tracking Control of a Flexible-Robot Including the Dynamics of the Induction Motor as Actuator

Common assumption in analysis of a flexible one-link robot is to take account of a DC motor as actuator. This work presents the design and stability analysis of a tracking controller of a flexible-robot including the dynamics of a 3-phase induction motor, despite of its high nonlinear dynamics, to drive the joint of the one-link arm. In this manner, the dynamic model of a joint-flexible-robot is combined with the induction motor model to build the motion equations. A control law is proposed for the flexible one-arm robot to track a desired trajectory, thus, this control input is used like the reference torque for the induction motor control. A stability analysis by Lyapunov criterion is detailed to demonstrate the tracking errors are globally exponentially stable. Simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed approach even when the one-link arm is subjected to uncertainty in parameters and external disturbances.