Vibration Control and Performance Analysis of a 3DOF High-Payload Flexible Link Manipulator

Flexible link manipulators (FLMs) are often praised for their potential advantages in industrial settings, such as being more lightweight, energy-efficient, and allowing higher operation speeds with smaller actuators. Many studies make unrealistic assumptions, like simplistic links, small deflections, low payloads, limited degrees of freedom, and well-defined mode shapes, which limit their real-world applicability. This paper investigates the performance of a flexible link manipulator with three degrees of freedom, designed for high payload capabilities and characterized by complex link shapes and complex vibration modes. An advanced control methodology was developed following the identification of the parameter-varying flexible link manipulator setup to manage the manipulator’s vibrations effectively. Comparative experiments were conducted between the flexible link manipulator and a conventional rigid link manipulator, assessing performance metrics such as repeatability, overshoot, settling time, torque and energy consumption. The results show that the flexible link manipulator, equipped with the advanced control system, achieves a repeatability of 0.14 mm, comparable to that of commercially available rigid robots. Moreover, energy consumption is reduced even with the implementation of active vibration suppression. The study highlights the potential of flexible link manipulators for real-world applications.