A promising method of significantly increasing the operating speeds of robots will be investigated. The primary robot speed limitation is from resonances in the arm, and the associated difficulty of control law design. The proposed approach focuses on annihilating the vibrations as the arm approaches the endpoint of its maneuver which is usually the only point where stringent accuracy is required. The vibrations will be eliminated with the use of discrete time-optimal control theory as opposed to the conventional classical control methods. The results should provide a dramatic improvement in speed (a factor of at least 2) without producing vibrations at the end of a move. Furthermore, these results will be in feedback form accounting for deviations in operating conditions. The phase I research will develop algorithms and software, and experimentally demonstrate the method on a single robot link. The method requires only the software and a few extra sensors, so the resulting robots will have a tremendous performance vs. Cost advantage over the currently available technology.
