Work

Semi-active damping for industrial robots

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The dynamic accuracy of industrial robots is signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by the elastic drive trains of the axes. Their behavior is composed of the coupled dynamics of drive control and gear mechanics. As an undesirable consequence, increasing elasticity leads to growing tracking errors. One approach to reduce tracking errors is semi-active damping. The functional principle is based on damping the gear mechanics by selective braking of an additional actuator. From a drive control perspective, this results in a more favorable system behavior, which in turn allows the selection of more performant control parameter values. This leads to better tracking and disturbance behavior. The aim of this paper is totransfer the semi-active damping with a low-cost additional actuator to cascade-controlled industrial robots. For this purpose, a novel semi-active control law is proposed for actuator control. A damping actuator for the ﬁrst robot axis is designed, design rules are derived and an integration concept is proposed. Finally, a H∞ synthesis methodology for simultaneous parameterization of the drive and actuator control is introduced. An experimental validation proves the eﬀectiveness of the solution at axis level resulting in an average 17.3 % reduction in tacking errors, and in a milling experiment, reducing the average Euclidean tracking error by 42.7 %.

Source: Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

DOI: 10.1016/j.rcim.2025.103008

Authors: Michael Neubauer, Christoph Hinze, Alexander Verl

Institution: University of Stuttgart

Language: English

Topic: Control Systems in Engineering

Subfield: Mechanical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,540