Internal model control and direct synthesis control for a dynamically modeled h-tetro reconfigurable tiling robot

Abstract In this paper, two control strategies have been proposed for a reconfigurable tiling robot. Internal Model Control (IMC) and Direct Synthesis (DS) based controllers have been designed and simulated for a four block tiling robot which is capable of configuring itself in seven different shapes. The dynamic modeling of the h-tetro reconfigurable tiling robot (H-TRTR) has been evaluated in terms of the linear and angular velocity of the first block. The Euler–Lagrange method is used for its modeling. This robot operates in two modes, one is reconfiguration and the other is locomotion. This work focuses on the locomotion for a particular reconfiguration. The velocity and torque state trajectories have been inspected for the IMC and DS methods. The proposed controllers are found to be working aptly for all different shapes of the reconfigurable robot. A comparative analysis is presented with the state of art control methods.