Active Vibration Control Strategy for a Single-Link Flexible Manipulator Using Ionic Polymer Metal Composite

Ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) are a class of electro-active polymers (EAP) that produce mechanical strain in response to electrical stimulation and vice versa. The property of generating high strains with low actuation voltage makes IPMC suitable for mechanical actuators in applications involving control of high-amplitude vibration. This article describes results on an application of IPMC as an active damper for large deflection vibration control of a single link rotating flexible manipulator. Modeling of the flexible rotating link has been done using modal approach and it was found that the first two modes of vibration take the maximum amount of energy. Based on this, two IPMC actuators were fixed at suitable positions on the link to suppress vibrations. A dynamic model of the link with IPMC was derived and a distributed PD controller designed to actuate the IPMC to control the vibration of the flexible link. Simulations were first done to demonstrate the effectiveness of IPMC and then experiments are conducted to validate the results. The results prove that IPMC can be used as an active damper for suppressing vibration in a flexible link manipulator.