US-Egypt Cooperative Research: Modeling and Control of Robotic Manipulators with Flexible Links and Joints

University Of Illinois At Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

0314378 Shabana Description: This award is to support a cooperative research project between Dr. Ahmed Shabana, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), Illinois and Dr. Said Megahed, Department of Mechanical Design and Production, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. The research goal is to improve the current design methodologies of robotic manipulators using modern control techniques. A lightweight robot with smart control strategies eliminates the robot vibrations and achieves high-speed operations. This goal may be achieved with the development of a reliable dynamic model of a robotic manipulator without and/or with flexible links and joints. Different control strategies will be evaluated in order to make the robot TCP follow a desired trajectory. The performance of these control strategies will be compared in order to determine the optimum control system. The control effort is to accurately position the robot endpoint TCP and to dampen the robot oscillations. DC-motors and/or piezoelectric actuators may be used and tested for accurate control. Experimental verification of the performance and robustness of the robot with the developed control system will be carried out. The dynamic simulation for the very flexible robot will be obtained using the finite element absolute nodal coordinate formulation. In this formulation global position and slope coordinates are used as the nodal coordinates. The absolute nodal coordinate formulation leads to a constant mass matrix, and as a consequence, the centrifugal and Coriolis inertia forces are identically equal to zero. Scope: The collaboration in this project will involve the Egyptian group focusing on the experimental studies, while the group at the University of Illinois at Chicago will be focused on the analytical and computational studies related to the small and large deformation problems. A graduate student at UIC will participate in this international collaboration. Several Egyptian students will participate in the experimental work at Cairo University. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.