Abstract
When we control a flexible manipulator based on a dynamic model, we need to estimate the state variables with accuracy. In the case of flexible manipulators, the state variables include elastic deformations and their velocities due to flexibility. We focus on visual sensor to measure these distributed state variables of flexible manipulators. First, we discuss a distributed state estimation method which uses discrete position information of markers attached on flexible links. Second, we apply the virtual joint model to flexible manipulators, and transform the real elastic deformations to the virtual joint angles. Third, when we estimate the lumped state variables by the proposed method, it is possible to identify physical parameters of the dynamic model. Finally, some experiments were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
