Cartesian Space Nonlinear PD Control for the Multi-tink Flexible Manipulators

There-have been many control strategies for the enact joint position tracking of flexible manipulators, but direct cartesian space tracking control methods an not developed well. In this paper, we propose a PD control method based on the cartesian error in the end point trajectory tracking. the proposed controller is composed of PD control combined with nonlinear saturation term hut has a very simple form. the effect of this term is continuous suppression of vibration which is induced by the coupling of rigid motion. This control works both on the regulation and on the tracking cases. The performance and validity of this control method is shown by simulation examples.