Moharam H. Korayem - Professor, Robotic Research Laboratory, College of Mechanical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
Mostafa Nazemizadeh - Phd candidate, Robotic Research Laboratory, College of Mechanical Engineering, Amirkabir University, Tehran, Iran
Hamed Rahimi nahooji - MSc, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Damavand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Damavand, Iran

In this paper, finding Dynamic Load Carrying Capacity (DLCC) of flexible link manipulators in point to-point motion was formulated asan optimal control problem. The finite element method was employed for modelling and deriving the dynamic equations of the system. Thestudy employed indirect solution of optimal control for system motion planning. Due to offline nature of the method, many difficulties suchsystem nonlinearities and all types of constraints can be catered for and implemented easily. The application of Pontryagin’s minimumprinciple to this problem was resulted in a standard two-point boundary value problem (TPBVP), solved numerically. Then, theformulation was developed to find the maximum payload and corresponding optimal path. The main advantage of the proposed method isthat the various optimal trajectories can be obtained with different characteristics and different maximum payloads. Therefore, the designercan select a suitable path among the numerous optimal paths. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method, a simulation studyconsidering a two-link flexible manipulator was presented in details.

Flexible Manipulator; Finite Element Method; Pontryagin Minimum Principle