THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS AND COMPENSATION OF LOAD TRANSITIONS IN ROBOTIC SYSTEMS

The problem of a robot handling a payload typically involves pre-load, load, and post-load stages, and payload transitions between these sta ges. Although considerable work has focused on the control of robots c arrying payloads, few consider the problem of load transitions-one of the most important effects on system performance. This article studies these transitions and presents a compensation method. It is shown tha t load transitions lead to abrupt (jump) parameters and uncertain tran sition times in the robot/payload model. A control strategy is propose d that takes the load transitions into account and guarantees the stab le path tracking of robots in the face of these transitions. The effec tiveness of the proposed control strategy is verified via simulation. (c) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.