Impact vibration reduction for flexible manipulators via controllable local degrees of freedom

When performing operation tasks, the interaction between a flexible manipulator and a grasped object usually results in an impact. In this paper, a new way is suggested to alleviate impact vibration of a flexible manipulator via its structural characteristic when capturing a moving object. Controllable local degrees of freedom are introduced to the topological structure of the flexible manipulator, and used as an effective tool to combat impact vibration through dynamic coupling. A corresponding method is put forward to reduce impact vibration responses of the flexible manip- ulator via the controllable local degrees of freedom. By planning motion of the controllable local degrees of freedom, appropriate control force can be constructed to increase the modal damping and stiffness and eliminate the exciting force simultaneously, thereby reducing impact vibration responses of the flexible manipulator. Simulations are conducted and results are shown to prove the presented method.