Decentralized Control of Robotic Arm with Elastic Joints

This article considers application of series elasticity in modern robots with the main focus on robotic arms. Due to enhanced shock robustness and other useful properties these robotic arm can provide significant performance in extreme conditions, including space. Since such systems are more difficult to control than traditional rigid ones, special control algorithms are required. Here we implement a decentralized control scheme with inverse dynamics-based in the outer loop and torque controllers in joints. The designed algorithm is validated in simulation. The control system and joint internal dynamics are executed in Matlab-Simulink environment, while rigid-body dynamics is provided by CoppeliaSim software (former V-REP). In future work a centralized control scheme is planned to be implemented as well, so that the performance could be compared.

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