Vibration Control of a Flexible Beam with Input Backlash

In this chapter, the nonsmooth input backlash is taken into consideration. The input backlash will be caused by the gears which can control the motor to realize the proposed actual input. The space between gears results in a backlash function which relates to the input and output angles. If backlash effect in gears is not reduced, it will degrade the system’s performance, reduce control accuracy and even make the system unstable. Some solutions have been developed to reduce the effect of backlash in the aspects of mechanical. However, they will decrease the accuracy of the system. In addition, they are expensive, energy consuming usually and would increase the weight of the system. Therefore, some works research the theoretic method to overcome these drawbacks. In [1], a robust adaptive control is designed for nonlinear dynamical systems with a backlash-like hysteresis. In [2], the authors present sliding mode controllers to analyze the stability of a nonlinear uncertain plant with dead-zone or backlash in the actuator devices.