Variable stiffness control of a single-link flexible robotic arm

Abstract A case study is presented to demonstrate the use of variable stiffness control to attenuate the excessive oscillations of a single-link robotic arm. This relatively simple control technique actively changes the system’s stiffness to take advantage of strain energy storage capabilities for different stiffnesses. The stiffness changes required for vibration control can be accomplished with minimal effort and without adding energy to the system, ensuring the stability of control. Numerical simulations predicted significant suppression of both transient and random vibrations. Simple experiments were performed to test the validity of the numerical predictions.