Cooperative Transportation of a Flexible Beam Utilizing Dual Space Robot Manipulators

This study centers on the dynamics and control surrounding the transportation of a flexible beam utilizing two robot manipulators with fixed bases. The dynamics of the transportation system are determined by employing Lagrange multipliers method and assumed modes method. During the transportation operation, the deformation of the flexible beam becomes intertwined with the motion of the space manipulators. The disturbances acting on the manipulators caused by the lateral and torsional deformation of the flexible beam are calculated based on the static deformation analysis. To account for uncertainties and unmodeled disturbances, a radial basis function (RBF) neural network (NN) is employed to approximate them. An adaptive computed torque controller (CTC) based on the neural network is then proposed. This controller aims to facilitate trajectory tracking of the robot manipulators and compensate for the introduced disturbances. Indeed, numerical simulations using the constant step-size generalized-α integrator as the solver can be conducted to evaluate the performance of the trajectory tracking using both the proposed controller and the conventional computed torque controller (CTC). By comparing the results obtained from these simulations, it becomes possible to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed controller over the CTC.