Challenge:
Design a control system to position the robot tip in a plane (2-DOF) as rapidly as possible with minimum vibrations. The end-effector planar position to track and/or regulate is of the two-bar serial-kinematic mechanism that has two flexible joints.

Description
This system consists of two DC motors each driving harmonic gearboxes (zero backlash) in a two-bar serial linkage. Both links are rigid. The primary link is coupled to the first drive by means of a flexible joint. It carries at its end the second harmonic drive which is coupled to the second rigid link via another flexible joint. Both motors and both flexible joints are instrumented with quadrature optical encoders. Both flexible joints use two springs each that can be changed. In addition, a thumbscrew mechanism is available to move each spring end to different anchor points along its support bars, as desired. The Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) system is supplied with a decoupled state-feedback controller reducing flexibility-caused oscillations as well as link-coupling effects. This system is fully open-architecture and you may design any other controller desired.

Difficulty
Undergraduate advanced / Graduate / Research

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