Lookup table control method for vibration suppression of a flexible manipulator with optimization of the minimum settling time and energy consumption

Active vibration suppression of flexible manipulators is important in many engineering applications, such as robot manipulators and high‐speed flexible mechanisms. The demand for a short settling time and low energy consumption of vibration suppression requires consideration of optimal control. Under a wide range of operating conditions, however, the fixed optimal parameters determined for a control algorithm might not produce the best performance. Therefore, to enhance performance, this paper suggests a lookup table control method for a flexible manipulator. This method can tune itself to the optimal parameters on the basis of initial maximum responses to the controlled system. In this study, a multi‐objective genetic algorithm is used to search for optimal parameters with regard to positive position feedback to the control algorithm. In turn, with the optimal parameters, the multi‐objective functions of the settling time and energy consumption during the vibration control of a flexible manipulator can be minimized. The simulation and experimental results both indicate that the energy consumption can be reduced significantly if the settling time is slightly increased. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society