Cooperative output feedback control of a mobile dual flexible manipulator

Abstract

This paper addresses the cooperative output feedback control of a mobile dual flexible manipulator, which is mounted at a moving platform to grasp and move a rigid object. We derive the distributed parameter model with geometric constraints for the dual flexible manipulator system by utilizing the Lagrange multiplier method and the Hamilton’s principle, which avoids the problem of control spillover. This paper considers a case where the states of system are difficult to measure directly and exploits the high gain observer theory to design the state observers for estimating the unavailable states. Then the cooperative output feedback control scheme is developed by the Lyapunov’s method, which enables the cooperative control of the flexible manipulator system. Furthermore, under the cooperative output feedback control scheme, we prove that the states of the system are uniformly bounded. Finally, the feasibility of the designed cooperative output feedback controllers is verified by numerical simulation.