Modeling and Control of a Rotating Flexible Beam on a Translatable Base

This paper considers the control of a flexible beam with base rotation torque and translation force input. A nonlinear model is developed by using Hamilton’s principle. The inherent passivity property in the model is then used to construct a globally stabilizing control law which requires little model information. Simulation result confirms the dramatic improvement of performance when the force control is used to augment the traditional torque control.