Study on vibration reduction and mobility improvement or the flexible manipulator via redundancy resolution

The flexible redundant manipulator, i.e., the flexible manipulator with redundant rigid degrees of freedom, possesses the same kinematic redundancy property as the rigid redundant manipulator. Some undesired effects on the flexible redundant manipulator are expected to alleviate via kinematic redundancy. Due to the presence of structural flexibility, a manipulator will inevitably vibrate when performing tasks. Therefore, how to reduce its vibration responses is a significant problem. Moreover, the manipulator's mobility, i.e., its ability to move, is another important issue, because good mobility is a desirable goal for almost all robotic manipulator systems. In this paper, how to reduce vibration and improve mobility is studied for the flexible redundant manipulator. Firstly, a method for vibration control via redundancy resolution is put forward. Secondly, the self-motions satisfying vibration reduction are analyzed, and its additional optimization ability is revealed. Based on this ability, a strategy is proposed to both reduce vibration and improve mobility for the flexible redundant manipulator. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy.