Initial Steps to Vibration Control of a Concrete Pump

Concrete pump robots are used for very wide operating ranges, so elastic deformations of the links must be taken into account. Concrete pumps demand actuators with a high power density, able to produce large forces which can be achieved by the use of hydraulically driven actuators. Hydrostatic differential cylinders are widely used because of their simple construction. For multilink flexible robots actuated by hydrostatic differential cylinders it is not possible to establish an accurate analytical model and this makes vibration damping control for the end effector difficult. A recent model independent approach to active damping control is used and presented in this paper. The control concept is described, where the actuators move as virtual spring-damper elements and this concept is used for vibration control of a concrete pump.