Passive optimal feedback control of an articulated flexible arm

This article deals with stabilization and optimal control of an articulated flexible arm by a passive approach. This approach is based on the boundary control of the Euler–Bernoulli beam by means of wave-absorbing feedback. Due to the specific propagative properties of the beam, such controls involve long-memory, non-rational convolution operators. Diffusive realizations of these operators are introduced and used for elaborating an original and efficient wave-absorbing feedback control. The globally passive nature of the closed-loop system gives it the unconditional robustness property, even with the parameters uncertainties of the system. This is not the case in active control, where the system is unstable, because the energy of high frequencies is practically uncontrollable. Our contribution comes in the achievement of optimal control by the diffusion equation. The proposed approach is original in considering a non-zero initial condition of the diffusion as an optimization variable. The optimal arm evolution, in a closed loop, is fixed in an open loop by optimizing a criterion whose variable is the initial diffusion condition. The obtained simulation results clearly illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the optimal diffusive control.