Positioning of the Two-link Arm by Manual Control

Abstract

The problem-solving ability of a human in manual control is considered. The purpose of the manual control is the positioning of the two-link arm with a free joint. This kind of manipulator are getting popular recently because of its simplicity. The control of the manipulator, however, is difficult because the motion is governed by a set of nonlinear equations. A real-time simulator is used to perform the experiment of manual control. It is concluded that a human can find some satisfactory control patterns after enough training. These results are interesting from the theoretical point of view, they suggest a possible theoretical approach to this difficult control problem.