A Pseudo-rigid model for the inverse dynamics of an Euler beam

Abstract Inversion technique has been very successful in the tracking control of nonlinear dynamical systems. However, when applied to manipulators constructed with elastic links, inverse dynamics through direct integration in temporal space causes unbounded controller command. It has been suggested that seeking an inverse dynamics solution for a given tip trajectory with given initial conditions is an ill-posed problem. It has also been suggested that increasing model accuracy by including more terms in a truncated beam model worsens the controller’s ability to stabilize the system dynamics. In this paper, we seek to understand the nature of the inverse dynamics instability and to find an alternative solution. We appeal to the notion of a pseudo-rigid model which describes the beam deflection by a homogeneous displacement field. Particularly, we derive the mode shape in order to yield a bounded inverse dynamics solution. Different from most of the existing solutions where solution stability was achieved through modifying the output function, we modified the inverse dynamics model. A bounded inverse solution and model simplicity provide much needed ease in the design and implementation of an inversion controller. Numerical simulations and experiments have both been conducted to prove the validity of the proposed method.