Novel m-PSO Optimized LQR Control Design for Flexible Link Manipulator: An Experimental Validation

Recently, robotic manipulators are the key industry requirement. These have find the importance to enhance the productivity as well as accuracy. Furthermore, industries are also moving towards the use of Flexible Link Manipulator (FLM) owing to their unique characteristics i.e. light weight, high speed operations, and the larger workspace. The FLM system has flexibility of link that causes vibrations and oscillations which affect adversary to the performance of robotic arm. The performance of FLM system is measured w.r.t. minimum error and oscillations in trajectory tracking. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to overcome the complications of FLM system. A full state feedback Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), is designed for FLM. It is observed that the designed controller can enhance the accuracy of the robotic arm, while reducing oscillations and vibrations. In addition, to enhance the performance of controller and to reduce the hassle in terms of selecting the parameter of Q matrix in LQR, modified particle swarm optimization (m-PSO) is used. The effectiveness of designed controller is simulated in MATLAB. Further, the validation of designed controller is tested on hardware FLM device. The results obtained from the simulation and hardware are compared.

Keywords:

PSO , FLM , Tracking Error , Vibration , LQR