Abstract:
This thesis concerns the design of an infinite dimensional control system for a flexible robot arm. In this work, we consider this system as a flexible beam that is clamped to a motor at the one end and free at the other end. A mass is also attached tothe free end of the beam. The mathematical model can be described by an Euler-Bernoulli partial differential equation, with initial and boundary conditions. To reduce the vibration of the tip mass, we apply a feedback through the angular acceleration of motor. The control law is a linear combination of the tip deflection and a linear functional of the beam deflection. We show that the infinitesimal generator of the closed-loop system generates a contraction semigroup. Since the spectrum of a closed operator need not have only the eigenvalues, it is rather difficult to analyze the stability of the system using the spectral analysis approach. However, by using the Sobolev Imbedding theorem and Arzela's theorem, we can prove that the spectrum consists only of isolated eigenvalues with finite multiplicity. Besides, those eigenvalues lie in the open left half of the complex plane. We then prove that the closed loop system is asymptotically stable.