This volume provides doctorate students and professionals with basic and advanced material on modelling and control of complex mechanical systems, with particular emphasis on robotic manipulators.
Modelling of mechanical systems (the kinematics of rigid body motion, the rigid body equations of motion, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian equations of motion, holonomic and non-holonomic constraints, tools and methods for dynamic system description), B. Maschke; kinematics of robots (motion description, direct kinematics, analytical and geometrical inverse kinematics, Newton and gradient-like approximation methods, parallel and co-operating structures, manipulability measures), A. Kecskemethy; control of Hamiltonian systems (the direct method of Lyapunov, the direct method for general motions, passivity theory, construction of Lyapunov functions through the total energy, Lyapunov functions in control design), A. Astolfi; elastic joint and/or flexible link robots, motion equations of elastic joint and/or flexible link robots, modelling through symbolic and algebraic manipulation languages, observer and controller design, active materials), A. Tornambe; telemanipulation (modelling of telemanipulators, stability analysis of systems with time delay, control of systems with time delay, force reflection in telemanipulation, passivity and "wave" methods for control of telemanipulators), C. Melchiorri; the contact problem in classical mechanics (modelling one- and multi-degree-of-freedom impacts, modelling impacts in flexible structures, control of one and multi-degree-of-freedom impacts, control of impacts in flexible structures, plastic deformations), B. Brogliato; force control (modelling of constrained robotic manipulators, hybrid position/force control, impedence control, stiffness control), J. de Schutter; technologies and methodologies for motion control (description of electrical actuators, nonlinear observer and controller design for electrical actuators, intelligent power amplifiers, sensors, industrial implementation aspects), A. Tonielli (Part contents).
