Robust Control Approaches For A Two-link FlexibleManipulator

Control approaches for a two-link flexible manipulator are studied in the context of robust synthesis for Linear Parameter-Varying systems. Different treatments of the inertia matrix variations in the manipulator system are examined in three control law design formulations. The first two designs are based upon scaled H^ or structured singular value synthesis. The third design makes use of a new approach for robust gain-scheduled synthesis. Results show that this gain-scheduling technique maximizes both performance and robustness over the entire range of manipulator configurations.