Abstract Controlling one or more flexible components connected to a maneuvering robotic structure has been a long standing problem in the robotics community. Typical applications include the control of flexible beams, robotic manipulators, spacecraft systems, and cranes. A large number of different approaches for solving this problem have been proposed, e.g., phase-plane trajectory analysis, switching property analysis, Pontryagin's maximization principle, various input shaping methods, etc. Many of the studies have used a canonical spring-mass-damper system as a proxy for the practical plant. The previous approaches offer limited robustness in the presence of uncertainty in the flexible modes, which are generally challenging to model accurately. This article presents a new approach based on the concept of ensemble control to improve robustness of motion control for flexible systems. In particular, rest-to-rest time-optimal slewing control of a planar structure is studied. Compared to available standard methods, the proposed method is observed to offer superior performance. Several examples are presented to illustrate the efficacy of the approach.
Bhattacharjee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.