Abstract
In this paper, a consideration is conducted on control systems for power assist conveyance of flexible structures. The authors have developed a scheme of "robust assist" and a power assist cart adopting the robust assist control system based on the scheme. The control system consists of an impedance controller, a disturbance accommodating suboptimal controller, a disturbance observer and a reaction force controller in order to achieve the robust assist against structured uncertainties. In this control system, a controller designer can design the mechanical impedance characteristics and the disturbance reduction performance, respectively. However, the effectiveness of the use of the two control elements has not been fully addressed yet. Therefore, this paper shows an experimental consideration. On that point, as an example, this paper uses a ground including a slope as track in order to show the effectiveness of the disturbance observer. The disturbance observer improves the robustness against a work environment variation.
