Port-based modeling and simulation of mechanical systems with rigid and flexible links

  • Authors:
  • Alessandro Macchelli;Claudio Melchiorri;Stefano Stramigioli

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;IMPACT Institute, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Robotics
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

In this paper, a systematic procedure for the definition of the dynamical model in port-Hamiltonian form of mechanical systems is presented as the result of the power-conserving interconnection of a set of basic components (rigid bodies, flexible links, and kinematic pairs). Since rigid bodies and flexible links are described within the port-Hamiltonian formalism, their interconnection is possible once a proper relation between the power-conjugated port variables is deduced. These relations are the analogous of the Kirchhoff laws of circuit theory. From the analysis of a set of oriented graphs that describe the topology of the mechanism, an automatic procedure for deriving the dynamical model of a mechanical system is illustrated. The final model is a mixed port-Hamiltonian system, because of the presence of a finite-dimensional subsystem (modeling the rigid bodies) and an infinite-dimensional one (describing the flexible links). Besides facilitating the deduction of the dynamical equations, it is shown howthe intrinsic modularity of this approach also simplifies the simulation phase.