Abstract: For simultaneous positioning and vibration suppression of a flexible manipulator system driven by a rodless cylinder and piezoelectric patches actuator, three control algorithms are adopted for experiments, including fuzzy control, variable universe adaptive fuzzy control and indirect adaptive fuzzy control. The system composition is introduced, as well as the pneumatic circuit and control circuit of the system. The system model is given. Three control algorithms are analyzed. Variable universe adaptive fuzzy control algorithm improves the performance of traditional fuzzy controller by adjusting the universes of input and output variables on line, and the adaptive law of output universes is developed. An indirect adaptive fuzzy controller with adjustable parameters is constructed to approximate the ideal controller, and then the parameter adaptive law of the fuzzy controller is deduced. Considering the cylinder’s long stroke, gas compression and nonlinear pneumatic system factors, the hysteresis of control effect and the vibration of the flexible manipulator’s high frequency modes will be caused. Band-stop filter, low pass filtering and time delay compensation algorithm are introduced into the control algorithm. Experiments on simultaneous positioning and vibration suppression of flexible manipulator are conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that the adopted three control algorithms can accomplish positioning and vibration suppress of the flexible manipulator simultaneously. The performances of the adaptive fuzzy control algorithms are better than the traditional fuzzy control algorithm.

Key words: Active vibration control, Adaptive fuzzy control, Piezoelectric flexible manipulator, Pneumatic drive