An input shaping technique using a time-varying impulse sequence is pr
esented to reduce the motion-induced vibration of flexible systems in
a feedforward way. The decoupled modal responses for a general linear
time-varying system are firstly approximated. Upon this approximation,
the time-varying impulse sequences to suppress the vibrational modes
are found. The reference inputs to the systems are shaped by convolvin
g with the time-varying impulse sequence to suppress the multimode vib
rations. This technique can be also applied to suppress the vibration
of nonlinear time-varying systems. The performance of this method is d
emonstrated with two practical examples: a moving overhead crane and a
two-link robot manipulator. Consequently, this study provides an inpu
t shaping technique applicable to the vibration suppression of broader
classes of flexible systems.