Decentralized vibration control for fast and precise light-weight robots

A substantial increase in the robot velocity can only be achieved by introducing light-weight composite materials for the mechanics and gearless motor drives in order to substantially reduce the joint inertia, However, a light-weight robot carcass results in structural oscillations which have to be removed by the additional introduction of advanced model-based control structures and concepts. A new mechatronics concept is presented in which structural end-point oscillations are damped by means of a decentrally controlled vibration absorber. Representative simulation results applied to a high-precision SCARA robot confirm the efficiency of the concept.< >