IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2006 55
Design of Learning Input Shaping Technique for
Residual Vibration Suppression in an Industrial Robot
Juyi Park, Member, IEEE, Pyung-Hun Chang, Member, IEEE, Hyung-Soon Park,
and Eunjeong Lee, Member, IEEE
AbstractIn this paper, a practical method is proposed to sup-
press residual vibrations of industrial robots without a real-time
estimation of vibration frequencies. Through theoretical analysis
and experiments, we designed an input shaping technique (IST)
for the rst three axes of a six-degrees-of-freedom industrial robot.
Iterative learning IST (LIST) is applied to the rst axis to suppress
its time-varying nonlinear residual vibration, while conventional
IST is applied to the second and third axes. Experimental results
show that LIST can suppress residual vibrations to a level similar
to that of a time-varying IST which requires complicated real-time
estimation of a dynamic model. The LIST is an attractive method
for suppression of nonlinear and time-varying residual vibrations
in industrial robots which perform repetitive tasks because most
industrial robots have limited computing power and memory space
in their controllers.
Index TermsFlexible structure, industrial robot, input shap-
ing, iterative learning algorithm, residual vibration.
I. INTRODUCTION
I
N controlling industrial robots, fast and precise motions are
required for better productivity. Such motions, however, are
often restricted by residual vibrations in the end-effector, which
tend to be time varying and nonlinear due to the conguration-
dependent friction, inertia variation, and nonlinear stiffness of
joints.
For suppression of residual vibrations in exible systems,
there are two distinct approaches: open-loop feedforward [1]
and closed-loop feedback [2]. In terms of performance, the latter
scheme is more attractive than the former because it is inherently
more robust against disturbances and parameter variations. In
terms of practical implementation, however, the closed-loop
approach makes overall systems more complex and expensive.
More specically, the increased states due to vibrational modes
increase the order of the control systems, thereby requiring more
computation and more sensors as well as the measurability of the
additional states. Because of these difculties, many researchers
have developed feedforward schemes integrated with feedback
controllers [3], [4]. They reported that the schemes are simple
Manuscript received December 24, 2003; revised April 18, 2005. Recom-
mended by Technical Editor R. V. Patel. The work of P.-H. Chang was supported
by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) through the Center
for Human-Friendly Welfare Robotic Systems (HWRS).
J. Park is with Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Company Ltd.,
Koje City, 656-714 Korea.
P.-H. Chang and E. Lee are with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology (KAIST), Daejon 305-701, Korea.
H.-S. Park is with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60611
USA.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TMECH.2005.863365
in their structure and robust against disturbances or parameter
variations, thus very useful for practical applications.
Based on the observations above, we have considered the in-
put shaping technique (IST) proposed by Singer and Seering [3]
as the feedforward scheme to be combined with a feedback
controller. Since the beginning, the IST has attracted attention
owing to its effectiveness and simplicity. Its effectiveness has
been proven in practical systems such as ship cranes [5], chip
mounters [6] and open container, of liquid [7]. Nevertheless,
since the IST was proposed originally for linear time-invariant
systems [3], it is not so effective for systems with nonlinear
and time-varying characteristics such as the multilink robots
we are interested in. Even robust IST [3], which compensates
for inaccuracies of frequency estimation, is not of much help
for these systems.
To overcome this difculty, many attempts have been made
to improve IST for nonlinear and time-varying systems. As for
nonrobotic systems, online adaptive schemes were developed by
Tzes and Yurkovich [8] and Bodson [9]. As for robotic systems,
Rappole [10] applied a time-varying IST (TVIST) to a two-link
exible manipulator using a lookup table. Magee and Book [11]
modied the IST to eliminate the rst two modes of vibration in
a large and exible manipulator with a conguration-dependent
inertia. Cho and Park [12] proposed a method to determine the
exact time-varying impulse sequence and applied it to a two-link
exible robot. Additionally; there have been similar attempts to
apply the IST to various robots [13].
But these schemes require intensive computing power for
real-time computation or memory space for a frequency map.
Moreover, some schemes require an exact dynamic model of the
plant in real time. Because of the limited computing power and
memory space of industrial robots, however, it is difcult to meet
these requirements. Furthermore, it is a major work to obtain
an exact model for an industrial robot. These practical issues
have made us develop a scheme to adopt IST for an industrial
robot.
The IST we employed in this paper is an iterative learning
IST (LIST) [14], which iteratively updates the parameters of
IST based on data from previous trials. The idea central to
this approach came from our observation that most tasks of
industrial robots are planned in advance and they are repet-
itive by nature. The robot to which we apply iterative LIST
is an industrial robot which carries heavy payloads on plant
oors. Since ISTand LISTwere developed originally for single-
input single-output (SISO) systems, this paper deals with tech-
niques to extend the application of IST and LIST to industrial
robots that are multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems.
1083-4435/$20.00 2006 IEEE
56 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the industrial robot.
Although the basic idea of LIST was already presented in [14]
with simple simulations and experiments, auxiliary techniques
are needed for LIST to be more practical. This paper, there-
fore, represents techniques for practical application of LIST
including an application strategy for MIMO systems with cou-
pling, parameter updating scheme for nonlinear time-varying
systems, and a selection method for initial guesses of IST pa-
rameters. In addition, this paper presents analytical verication
for convergence of LIST. Since vibration in the rst joint is sub-
stantially large and time varying, LISTis applied only to the rst
joint and conventional IST to the second and third joints. We
use the input/output value of the rst joint for the learning pro-
cess so that its nonlinear and time-varying residual vibrations
can be suppressed without a dynamic model of the robot. The
experimental results of iterative LIST are compared to those of
TVIST, and their merits and demerits are evaluated. This proce-
dure can be used as a practical guideline for various industrial
robots other than ours.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the
dynamics of the industrial robot and discusses IST application
strategy for the robot. Section III shows its nonlinear and time-
varying vibrations and presents the main idea and algorithm of
the iterative LIST. Section IVdescribes our experimental results,
and discussion is followed by conclusions in Section V.
II. UNDERSTANDING OF A ROBOT DYNAMICS FOR
LIST APPLICATION
In this section, the dynamic properties of the robot are de-
scribed in order to show the nonlinear and time-varying charac-
teristics of the robot, and a strategy to apply IST for the robot is
presented.
A. Robot Dynamics
The industrial robot of our interest has a parallelogram-
linkage structure with six degrees of freedom (6 DOF). The
schematic diagram of the robot is shown in Fig. 1 and its esti-
mated parameters are presented in Table I. As can be expected
from the numerical values of these parameters, the robot is in-
tended for handling heavy payloads or spot welding with the
maximum payload of 120 kg.
To examine its frequency variation properties, the dynamic
equation of the robot was derived based on the schematic di-
agram depicted in Fig. 1. Note that these last three axes have
little effect on inertia variation and, thus, on frequency variation.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE ROBOT
Fig. 2. Model of joint exibility.
Therefore, the dynamic equations are derived only for the rst
three joints.
Since joint exibility is the primary cause of robot vibration,
it is included in the model. The exibility of the ith joint is
modeled as a torsional spring with stiffness K
T i
[13]. Accord-
ingly, each axis also includes two joint variables representing
both motor angle (
mi
) and link angle (
i
), as shown in Fig. 2.
The dynamic equations for this robot are derived by using
Lagranges method and described as follows:
M
11

m1
+ b
m1

m1
+
b
k1
r
1

r1
+
K
T 1
r
1

r1
=
1
(1)
M
22

1
+ b
1

1
b
k1

r1
K
T 1

r1
+ N
1
(,

) = 0 (2)
M
33

m2
+ b
m2

m2
+
b
k2
r
2

r2
+
K
T 2
r
2

r2
=
2
(3)
M
44

2
+ M
46

3
+ b
2

2
b
k2

r2
K
T 2

r2
+N
2
(,

) + G
2
() = 0 (4)
M
55

m3
+ b
m3

m3
+
b
k3
r
3

r3
+
K
T 3
r
3

r3
=
3
(5)
M
64

2
+ M
66

3
+ b
3

3
b
k3

r3
K
T 3

r3
+N
3
(,

) + G
3
() = 0 (6)
where
ri
= (

m i
r
i

i
), = [
1

2

3
]
T
; and N
i
(,

) denotes
the Coriolis and centrifugal torque and G
i
() the gravity torque
at the ith joint; N
i
(,

)s and G
i
()s are shown in Appendix I.
In the equations above, it is assumed that viscous damping with
a coefcient of b
mi
is also present at each motor, b
i
at each joint,
and b
ki
at each torsional spring.
Under the assumption that each link has a uniform and
symmetric cross section, the elements of inertia matrix M
ij
()s
PARK et al.: INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE FOR AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT 57
can be expressed as the following:
M
11
= J
m1
(7)
M
22
= (m
a
l
ga
2
+ J
a
+ J
c
)c
2
2
+ (m
b
l
gb
2
+ J
b
+ J
d
)c
3
2
+ m
c
(l
b
c
3
l
gc
c
2
)
2
+ m
d
(l
c
c
2
+ l
gd
c
3
)
2
+ m
P
{l
c
c
2
+ (l
d
l
b
)c
3
}
2
(8)
M
33
= J
m2
(9)
M
44
= m
a
l
ga
2
+ J
a
+ m
c
l
gc
2
+ J
c
+ m
d
l
a
2
+ m
P
l
a
2
(10)
M
46
= {m
d
l
a
l
gd
m
c
l
b
l
gc
+ m
P
l
a
(l
d
l
b
)} cos(
2

3
)
(11)
M
64
= M
46
(12)
M
55
= J
m3
(13)
M
66
= m
b
l
gb
2
+ J
b
+ m
c
l
b
2
+ m
d
l
gd
2
+ J
d
+ m
P
(l
d
l
b
)
2
(14)
where l
k
and l
gk
(k = a, b, c, d), as shown in Fig. 1, denote the
length of the corresponding link and the length to the center of
gravity of the link, respectively. In the same manner, m
k
and
J
k
represent the mass and moment of inertia of the link, respec-
tively. In addition, m
P
denotes the payload, attached to the end-
effector, and c
i
and s
i
symbolize cos
i
and sin
i
, respectively.
Note in (8) and (11) that M
22
and M
46
vary with both
2
and

3
, whereas (10) and (14) show that M
44
and M
66
are constant.
Owing to M
22
and M
46
, hence, the robot has time-varying
vibrations [15].
The vibration is not only time varying, but also nonlinear
due to robot dynamics such as nonlinear spring characteristics
of harmonic drive and friction. Moreover, nonlinear terms in
dynamic equations, such as Coriolis, centrifugal, and gravity
torque, cause nonlinear residual vibration of the robot. As an
example, let us examine N
1
, which can be expressed in the
following form:
N
1
(,

) = f
1
(
2
,
3
,

2
,

3
)

1
. (15)
Since f
1
(
2
,
3
,

2
,

3
) is a nonlinear function, N
1
(,

) can
be regarded as a nonlinear damper with a nonlinear damping
coefcient. Therefore, we can see that the nonlinear terms in
N
1
cause nonlinear residual vibration of the robot.
Due to such time-varying and nonlinear characteristics, resid-
ual vibrations of industrial robots are not well suppressed by
conventional IST, which was derived for linear time-invariant
(LTI) systems [8][10], [12]. To this end, we may apply mod-
ied versions of the IST technique for the robot. The authors,
however, found that, with properly tuned IST parameters, con-
ventional IST can suppress residual vibration in nonlinear and
time-varying systems [14], [16][18]. Since conventional IST
does not require intensive computational time or large memory
space, we employed IST to suppress the residual vibration of
the industrial robot.
B. IST Application Strategy for the Robot
The dynamic equations above clearly show that the robot is a
multivariable system. Nevertheless, the following observations
are drawn from the analysis of dynamic equations of the robot
and experimental verication.
1) For axes 1, 2, and 3, the variation of IST parameters in
one axis has little effect on the residual vibration of the
other two. For example, even though the IST parameters
of axis 1 are changed, the residual vibration in axes 2 and 3
are affected only slightly (Appendix II).
2) Residual vibration in axis 1 is dominant while those in
axes 2 and 3 are relatively small (see Fig. 10).
Based on these observations, we have developed a strategy to
determine IST parameters as follows.
1) Apply conventional IST to axes 2 and 3. Although the
residual vibrations in axes 2 and 3 are not eliminated
entirely with conventional IST, the remaining vibrations
are negligible so that conventional ISTcan be used in these
axes without ne tuning.
2) Tune IST parameters for axis 1 by applying iterative learn-
ing algorithm.
III. ITERATIVE LEARNING INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE
A. IST and Measures of Residual Vibrations
The two-impulse sequence for suppression of the residual
vibration is given in the following general form:
u(s) =
_
A
1
e
T
1
s
+ A
2
e
T
2
s

r(s) (16)
where r(s) is a reference trajectory. The two-impulse sequence
u(s) has four parameters: the magnitudes of impulses A
1
and
A
2
, and the application time T
1
and T
2
. Without loss of general-
ity, T
1
may be xed to 0 for a faster response, and A
2
may also
be xed to (1 A
1
) in order to maintain a unit gain. Then, there
remain only two independent parameters to be determined, A
1
and T
2
.
According to Singer and Seerings study [3], the residual
vibrations due to the two-impulse sequence vanish if A
1
and
T
2
are properly selected by the following equations:
A
1n
=
1
1 + e
/

1
2
(17)
T
2n
=

n
_
1
2
(18)
where ( )
n
denotes the exact values of ( ), and and
n
mean
the damping ratio and the natural frequency of the residual
vibration to be suppressed, respectively.
When A
1
= A
1n
or T
2
= T
2n
, however, the residual vibra-
tion does not vanish after the application time T
2
. For exam-
ples, we examined the responses for four cases: T
2
> T
2n
and
T
2
< T
2n
for A
1
= A
1n
, and A
1
> A
1n
and A
1
< A
1n
for
T
2
= T
2n
. Fig. 3 shows the responses to the two-impulse se-
quence for these four cases. In the gure, the solid lines rep-
resent the original vibration, the unit impulse response without
IST, and the dotted lines represent the resultant responses to
the two-impulse sequence. Fig. 3(a) shows the response for the
case T
2
> T
2n
, and Fig. 3(c) for the case T
2
< T
2n
; Fig. 3(b)
for the case A
1
> A
1n
, and Fig. 3(d) for the case A
1
< A
1n
.
Both responses show that the residual vibrations still persist and
58 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006
Fig. 3. Responses to the two-impulse sequence with inaccurate parameters. Solid lines represent unit impulse responses; dashed lines represent the resultant
responses to the two-impulse sequence with T
2
= T
2n
or A
1
= A
1n
.
TABLE II
OBSERVED RANGES OF FOR NINE POSSIBLE CASES
that there exist phase differences from the original vibration
without IST.
In order to adopt a learning scheme for IST, we have used two
measures: the magnitude and phase difference of residual vibra-
tion. More specically, the magnitude measure M is dened as
M
_
t
f
t
i
|(t)| dt (19)
where (t) is any signal representing residual vibration such as
position, velocity, or acceleration. t
i
t t
f
is the duration
when the residual vibration is signicant.
Another measure, , is the phase difference between the resid-
ual vibrations with and without IST. Examples of for improper
sets of T
2
are shown in Fig. 3. When T
2
is larger than the proper
value, has a positive value or phase lead as shown in Fig. 3(a).
On the other hand, when T
2
is smaller than the proper value,
then has a negative value or phase lag as shown in Fig. 3(c).
Hence, by observing , we can determine whether an IST pa-
rameter is larger or smaller than the proper value. Table II shows
the observed ranges of for nine possible cases of improper A
1
and T
2
.
In order to put the observation above into a broader perspec-
tive, we draw the simulation plots of M and for two cases:
with T
2
varying while A
1
is xed as in Fig. 4(a); and with A
1
varying while T
2
is xed as in Fig. 4(b).
Fig. 4(a) shows that the magnitude and the phase vary
in nonlinear fashions, with M having local minima at T
2
=
T
2n
, 3T
2n
, 5T
2n
, . . . (or
T
2
T
2n
= 1, 3, 5, . . .) [19]. Accordingly,
we have restricted the limit 0 T
2
2T
2n
throughout the
learning process. In this region, M has only one minimumwith-
out any additional local minima, thereby enabling us to apply a
function minimization method for parameter update. The range
of A
1
, 0 A
1
1, is determined by (17), and Fig. 4(b) shows
that M and vary linearly for the range. For this reason, the
convergence of A
1
has posed little difculty.
B. Iterative Learning Scheme
The iterative learning scheme updates the IST parameters A
1
and T
2
by using M and obtained from the experiment (or
simulation) with parameters from the previous execution. The
overall algorithmis summarized as follows: With an initial guess
of A
1
and T
2
, update T
2
rst while keeping A
1
xed, until M
reaches its minimum; then update A
1
with keeping T
2
xed;
alternate the updating of A
1
and T
2
until a satisfactory M is
obtained. The phase difference is examined only to determine
the update rule as explained in the next section.
1) Parameter Update: For convenience, let p denote a pa-
rameter to be updated, A
1
or T
2
, with p
k
denoting p at the kth
iteration and M
k
denoting M obtained from an experiment (or
simulation) by using p
k
.
The iterative learning scheme is to nd p
n
, the proper param-
eter to minimize M, which has a shape shown in Fig. 5(a). Thus,
PARK et al.: INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE FOR AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT 59
Fig. 4. Variation of M and : (a) for T
2
varying with A
1
xed, (b) for A
1
varying with T
2
xed.
Fig. 5. The shape of M and

M.
updating the IST parameters may be regarded as a function min-
imization and various function minimization techniques can be
used to this end.
Froma different perspective, however, the parameter updating
may be viewed as a root nding problemand various root nding
methods can be utilized for this purpose. To elaborate, dene a
e

M as

M = Msign(p
n
p) (20)
where
sign(x) =
_
1, if x > 0
0, if x = 0
1, if x < 0.
Fig. 5(b) shows

M as a function of p. Note that the condition,
sign(x) = 0 if x = 0, makes

M = 0 when p = p
n
, and thus we
can use root nding methods for parameter updates.
In parameter updating, we have made use of a well estab-
lished function minimization method called the golden section
search [20] in conjunction with a root nding method called the
secant method [21]. The latter was used to increase the speed of
convergence for the former.
Briey summarizing, the golden section search is based on the
fact that a minimumcan be found when there is a triplet of points,
a < b < c, such that f(b) is less than both f(a) and f(c). In this
case, the function has a minimum in the interval [a, c]. With this
idea, one can narrow down the interval by choosing a new point
d between a and b or between b and c. Let us suppose that d is
chosen between b and c. Then we know that a minimum is in
the interval [b, c] if f(d) < f(b) as in Fig. 6(a); or a minimum
is in the interval [a, d] if f(b) < f(d) as shown in Fig. 6(b). As
the process above is repeated with a new triplet b < d < c or
Fig. 6. (a) Aminimumis in the interval [b, c] if f(d) < f(b) or (b) a minimum
is in the interval [a, d] if f(b) < f(d).
Fig. 7. If

M is discontinuous near p
n
, p
k +1
obtained by (21) may be too far
from p
n
.
a < b < d, the interval in which f(x) has a minimum can be
narrowed down.
In the golden section search, the newpoint d in a given interval
is called the golden mean point since it is normally selected as
a golden mean of the given triplet [21]. Instead of using the
golden mean point method, however, the secant method is used
to increase the speed of convergence. This is possible because
we know the sign of e
k
from , where e
k
= p
n
p
k
.
In the secant method, p
k+1
is calculated from
p
k+1
= p
k
+ (p
k
p
k1
)

M
k

M
k1

M
k
(21)
where

M
j
is the

M obtained from experiment or simulation
using p
j
.
The secant method, however, does not work well when

M is
not continuous near p
n
as shown in Fig. 7, because it assumes the
function to be smooth near the root [21]. If

M is discontinuous
near p
n
, (21) determines p
k+1
far from p
n
as shown in Fig. 7.
60 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006
Fig. 8. p
k +1
is not in the interval where M has a minimumwhen the parameter
is updated improperly.
As a remedy to overcome this difculty, the following con-
straint is added:
|p
k+1
p
k
| |p
k
p
k1
|. (22)
As a result, when

M is discontinuous near p
n
, the following
equation is used instead of (21):
p
k+1
= p
k
+ (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_

M
k

M
k1

M
k
_
(23)
where sat(x) is a saturation function such that
sat(x) =
_
x, if |x| < 1
sign(x), otherwise.
We have proved that the updating scheme described thus far
makes p
k
converge to p
n
as iteration proceeds. The proof is
presented in Appendix III.
2) Updating Rule for Varying Frequencies: For some non-
linear systems, the phase difference is not reliable any more.
For example, a spring-mass system with a nonlinear spring vi-
brates with decreasing frequencies as the amplitude becomes
smaller, and it is of no use to measure between vibrations that
have different frequencies.
In the case of nonlinear systems with vibrations of varying
frequencies, therefore, we use a simple trial-error method
such as the following instead of using for parameter update:
Assume that both p
k
and p
k1
are either larger or smaller than
p
n
, that is, e
k
e
k1
> 0. Let us apply this assumption to (23)
and obtain the following equation to calculate p
k+1
:
p
k+1
= p
k
+ (p
k
p
k1
)
sat
_
M
k
sign(e
k
)
M
k1
sign(e
k1
) M
k
sign(e
k
)
_
= p
k
+ (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_
M
k
M
k1
M
k
_
. (24)
If p
k+1
obtained from (24) is in the interval in which M has a
minimum,
1
our assumption is conrmed to be correct, and the
learning proceeds to the next cycle. On the contrary, if the p
k+1
is not in the interval in which M has a minimum (as shown in
Fig. 8), it indicates that the p
k+1
was not properly updated, that
is, the assumption is wrong. Hence, applying e
k
e
k1
< 0 to
1
It was explained with the golden section search.
Fig. 9. Experimental setups used for the LIST. The learning process is done
on the IBM-PC 486.
(23), we can obtain the following equation to calculate p
k+1
:
p
k+1
= p
k
(p
k
p
k1
)sat
_
M
k
M
k1
+ M
k
_
. (25)
Although this method increases the iteration numbers and
delays the convergence of M, it enables us to obtain exact p
k+1
without .
3) Selection of Initial Parameters: The initial guesses of A
1
and T
2
can be calculated using Singers method [3]. Although
this method is derived from and intended for LTI systems, we
nd that they still provide good initial guesses for nonlinear
time-varying systems.
At the second iteration, p
1
cannot be obtained by using the
updating rule mentioned above because it requires two previous
experimental results. The new updating rule for p
1
is made in
the following form:
p
1
= p
0
sign(e
0
)p
0
(26)
where denotes a heuristically determined constant less than
one. In our learning process, we use = 0.1 and sign(e
0
) is
obtained from the initial phase difference
0
.
4) Condition for MinimumM: As mentioned above, we can
narrowdown the interval where M has a minimumor

M has a
rootthrough the learning process. We can say that M has con-
verged to its minimumif the interval is sufciently small so that
p
U
p
L
< (27)
where p
U
and p
L
denote the upper and lower bound of the
interval, respectively and the predened error bound.
IV. EXPERIMENT
A. Experimental Setup
Experiments were performed to verify that iterative LIST
is effective for suppression of residual vibrations in a robot
conducting repetitive tasks. For the experiments, the reference
trajectory with its trapezoidal velocity prole was given, and
the results of iterative LIST were then compared to those of
both conventional IST as well as TVIST based on Rappoles
method [10], [15].
The schematic diagram of the experimental setup is shown
in Fig. 9. As position controllers, proportional controllers with
inner PI velocity control loops run in a stand-alone robot con-
troller at sampling frequency 2 kHz. An accelerometer, from
PARK et al.: INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE FOR AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT 61
Fig. 10. Experimental results: residual vibration without IST. Note that the
robot moved for 1.35 s and the tip response after 1.35 s is the residual vibration.
PCB Piezotronics, Inc., is attached at the tip of the robot to
measure the residual vibrations of the tip.
As shown in Fig. 9, IST is implemented on the robot con-
troller, whereas the learning algorithm is carried out in the
outside controller, an IBM PC 486DX2-66. While the robot
is moving, the acceleration signals sensed by the accelerom-
eter are sent to the PC. Then the signals are read by an A/D
converter at sampling frequency 200 Hz and ltered through
a bandpass lter to lter out both drift signals and noise. The
ltered acceleration signals are stored in the PC memory. After
one cycle of motion, the PC calculates M and , and up-
dates the IST parameters. The values of the updated IST pa-
rameters are sent to the robot controller, and the next cycle
begins.
Prior to the application of IST lters for the robot, we ex-
amined the level of the residual vibrations without IST lters.
In these experiments, the reference trajectories were given as
S-curves with trapezoidal velocity proles. Fig. 10 shows the
tip acceleration signal processed through a lter with a band-
width between 230 Hz, when only feedback control is used.
The robot traveled for 1.35 s and the tip response after 1.35 s is
regarded as the residual vibration. As is shown in the gure, the
residual vibrations in the swing direction, which were caused
by the axis 1s movement, are substantially larger than those in
other directions.
The experiment above made us observe that the frequency of
residual vibration decreases with smaller amplitude whereas the
damping ratio remains nearly constant. The frequency variation,
in our study, is caused by both the time-varying inertia due to
change of the robots conguration and the nonlinear exibility
in the harmonic drive.
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of iterative LIST, two
other schemes of ISThave been compared: conventional ISTand
the TVIST based on Rappoles method [10], [15], respectively.
They are described as follows.
1) If For adopting conventional ISTto nonlinear time-varying
systems, we have designed an IST lter using the mean
value of varying frequencies.
2) If The TVIST is represented by
u(t) = A
1
r(t) + A
2
r(t T
2
(t)). (28)
The second impulse varies with time, and its application
time T
2
(t) is estimated in real time from the position data
of each axis.
Fig. 11. Experimental results. Magnitude measure M decreases as the number
of iterations increases.
Fig. 12. Tip acceleration measured in swing direction (axis 1). Both TVIST
and LIST have suppressed the residual vibrations. Note that because the robot
moved for 1.35 s, the tip acceleration after 1.35 s is the residual vibration.
B. Experimental Results
Fig. 11 shows the experimental results of the proposed iter-
ative LIST. With the initial parameters, the magnitude of the
residual vibration is quite large. As the number of iterations in-
creases, the residual vibrations become smaller and M reaches
its minimum at the sixth iteration. Note that tip acceleration is
used as (t) to calculate M using (19).
In Fig. 12, the results of iterative LIST are compared with
those of TVIST. LIST and TVIST reduced the peak residual
vibration to 14% and 13% of the original vibration without IST,
respectively, whereas IST reduced it only to 40%. Therefore,
the comparison displays that both iterative LIST and TVIST
have well suppressed the residual vibrations, which implies that
we can choose any of the two schemes according to application
conditions. If the real-time estimation of the varying frequency
is both possible and affordable, TVIST is applicable; if not, and
the task is repetitive, iterative LIST is suitable.
Although higher frequency vibrations exist in the transient
region, their amplitudes are very small. In our application, such
vibrations in the transient region were not important because
this robot was designed for point-to-point motion. Therefore,
we believe that LIST is useful for the repetitive tasks which
consist of point-to-point motions.
V. CONCLUSION
For suppression of nonlinear and time-varying residual
vibrations in a 6-DOF industrial robot, we have proposed an
iterative LIST which updates the parameters of IST by using
data from previous trials. Based on theoretical analysis and
62 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006
experiments, LIST is applied to the rst axis of the robot and
conventional IST is applied to the second and third axes. As
a result, the application of iterative LIST become convenient
because the iterative learning scheme is applied only for the
swing axis, which exhibits signicant time-varying frequencies
and large vibrational amplitudes.
Experimental results show that iterative LIST reduces the
nonlinear and time-varying residual vibrations in the robot as
effectively as TVISTdoes. The LISTis useful for repetitive tasks
of industrial robots where real-time estimation is not available,
whereas TVIST is effective for nonrepetitive tasks by changing
the IST parameters in real time according to the estimated fre-
quency. The iterative LIST is a promising technique to suppress
the nonlinear and time-varying residual vibrations in industrial
robots, which have a limited computing power and memory
space in most cases, because it does not require real-time esti-
mation of vibration frequencies.
APPENDIX I
N
i
(,

) AND G
i
()
N
i
s and G
i
s in Section II are shown in the following equa-
tions:
N
1
(,

)
= 2
_
m
a
l
2
ga
c
2
s
2
+ J
a
c
2
s
2
m
c
l
gc
s
2
(l
b
c
3
l
gc
c
2
)
+ J
c
c
2
s
2
+ m
d
l
c
s
2
(l
c
c
2
+ l
gd
c
3
)
+ m
P
l
c
s
2
{l
c
c
2
+ (l
d
l
b
)c
3
}]

2
2
_
m
b
l
2
gb
c
3
s
3
+ J
b
c
3
s
3
+ m
c
l
b
s
3
(l
b
c
3
l
gc
c
2
)
+ m
d
l
gd
s
3
(l
c
c
2
+ l
gd
c
3
) + J
d
c
3
s
3
+ m
P
(l
d
l
b
)s
3
{l
c
c
2
+ (l
d
l
b
)c
3
}]

3
N
2
(,

)
=
_
m
a
l
2
ga
c
2
s
2
+ J
a
s
2
m
c
l
b
l
gc
c
3
s
2
+ m
c
l
2
gc
c
2
s
2
+ J
c
s
2
+ m
d
l
2
c
c
2
s
2
+ m
d
l
c
l
gd
s
2
c
3
+ m
P
l
2
c
c
2
s
2
+ m
P
l
c
(l
d
l
b
)s
2
c
3
}

2
1
+{m
c
l
b
l
gc
+ m
d
l
a
l
gd
+ m
P
l
a
(l
d
l
b
)}
sin(
2

3
)

2
3
N
3
(,

)
=
_
m
b
l
2
gb
c
3
s
3
+ J
b
s
3
m
c
l
2
b
c
3
s
3
m
c
l
b
l
gc
c
2
s
3
+ J
d
s
3
+ m
d
l
2
gd
c
3
s
3
+ m
d
l
c
l
gd
s
2
s
3
+ m
P
(l
d
l
b
)
2
c
3
s
3
+ m
P
l
c
(l
d
l
b
)c
2
s
3
_

2
1
+{m
c
l
b
l
gc
m
d
l
a
l
gd
m
P
l
a
(l
d
l
b
)}
sin(
2

3
)

2
2
G
2
()
= (m
a
l
ga
+ m
c
l
gc
+ m
d
l
a
+ m
P
l
a
)c
2
g
Fig. 13. An example of reference trajectories and responses used in simula-
tions.
G
3
()
= {m
b
l
gb
m
c
l
b
+ m
d
l
gd
+ m
P
(l
d
l
b
)}c
3
g
where g denotes the gravitational acceleration constant.
APPENDIX II
SIMULATION
Simulations were performed to validate the application strat-
egy proposed in Section II-B with the dynamic model of (1)(6)
and parameters listed in Table I and in the following:
J
m1
= 0.015 kg m
2
J
m2
= J
m3
= 0.01 kg m
2
r
1
= r
2
= r
3
= 100
K
T 1
= K
T 2
= K
T 3
= 1.0 10
8
N m
b
1
= b
3
= 2000 N m s b
2
= 200 N m s
b
m1
= b
m2
= b
m3
= 50 N m s
b
k1
= b
k2
= b
k3
= 2000 N m s
where motor inertias and gear reduction ratios were given as
robot specications. Spring and friction constants were esti-
mated from experimental results.
Each joint was controlled by a proportionalintegral
derivative (PID) position controller, and a reference trajectory
for the PID controller was shaped by IST. Fig. 13 shows an
example of reference trajectories and responses of joints in sim-
ulations. The inner-loop PID controller has the following form:

i
= k
P i
(
di

i
) + k
Di
(

di

i
) + k
I i
_
(
di

i
) dt
where their control gains were tuned as follows:
k
P 1
= 12 10
6
, k
P 2
= k
P 3
= 24 10
6
k
I 1
= 8 10
7
, k
I 2
= k
I 3
= 16 10
7
k
D1
= 2000, k
D2
= k
D3
= 4000.
Sampling time for all simulation was xed to 0.5 ms.
In the rst simulation the robot moved without IST and re-
sulted in large residual vibrations as shown in Fig. 14. Since the
settling time was about 0.85 s for the given trajectories (Fig. 13),
vibrations after 0.85 s are regarded as residual vibrations. The
second simulation was performed with IST that was designed
independently for each joint based on the results of the rst
PARK et al.: INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE FOR AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT 63
Fig. 14. Residual vibrations with various IST parameters of axis 1:
i

m i
after settling time (a) without IST, (b) with IST, and (c) with IST parameter
variation in axis 1. Note that dashed and thick solid lines overlap each other in
axes 2 and 3.
TABLE III
TRAJECTORIES AND SIMULATIONS RESULTS
simulation. As shown in Fig. 14, residual vibrations in axes 2
and 3 were reduced to 17.6%and 18.2%of the original vibration,
respectively. The next simulation was to examine the variation
of residual vibrations in axes 2 and 3 with a change of IST
parameters in axis 1. IST parameters in axis 1, therefore, were
decreased by 50% while keeping those in axes 2 and 3 constant.
Comparing the results with those of the second simulation, we
observed that there were very little differences.
More simulations were performed with various trajectories as
listed in Table III. The values summarized in the table represent
the maximum peak-to-peak amplitude of residual vibrations
Fig. 15. Three different cases in updating parameters.
compared with those of residual vibrations without IST. The
simulation results exhibit that the peak amplitude of residual
vibrations in axes 2 and 3 varied only by 1% to 3%, while the
IST parameter in axis 1 had a negligible effect on the residual
vibration of the other two axes.
APPENDIX III
CONVERGENCE OF LIST
For the purpose of verifying the convergence of the proposed
updating rule, the error (p p
n
) is examined. First, the updating
condition is divided into the following two cases for examina-
tion.
Case 1) Both p
k1
and p
k
are smaller or larger than p
n
as
shown in Fig. 15(a).
Case 2) Either p
k1
or p
k
is smaller than p
n
and the other is
larger than p
n
as shown in Fig. 15(b).
Without loss of generality, we considered a situation repre-
sented in Fig. 15(a) for Case 1. By subtracting p
n
from both
sides of (23), we obtain
e
k+1
= e
k
+ (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_

M
k

M
k1

M
k
_
(29)
where e
j
= p
j
p
n
. Since p
k1
< p
k
< p
n
and

M
k
<

M
k1
,
we know that
e
k
< 0, p
k
p
k1
> 0,

M
k1

M
k
> 0.
With these inequalities, (29) can be
e
k+1
= |e
k
| + (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_

M
k

M
k1

M
k
_
. (30)
If p
k+1
< p
n
as shown in Fig. 15(a-1), the following inequal-
ity is obtained from (30):
|e
k+1
| = |e
k
| (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_

M
k

M
k1

M
k
_
< |e
k
|.
(31)
On the other hand, if p
k+1
> p
n
as shown in Fig. 15(a-2), the
following inequality holds from (30):
|e
k+1
| = |e
k
| + (p
k
p
k1
)sat
_

M
k

M
k1

M
k
_
|e
k
| + (p
k
p
k1
) = 2|e
k
| +|e
k1
|
< |e
k1
|. (32)
64 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2006
Equations (31) and (32) can be combined as follows:
|e
k+1
| < max[|e
k
|, |e
k1
|]. (33)
Moreover, (33) can be represented as (34) by introducing a
constant c
k+1
which satises 0 < c
k+1
< 1:
|e
k+1
| < c
k+1
max[|e
k
|, |e
k1
|]. (34)
In Case 2, we obtain the following equation from (21):
e
k+1
=

M
k1
e
k


M
k
e
k1

M
k1

M
k
. (35)
Since e
k
e
k1
< 0 and

M
k

M
k1
< 0 as shown in Fig. 15(b),
(35) becomes
|e
k+1
| =


M
k1
e
k
| |

M
k
e
k1

|

M
k1
| +|

M
k
|

M
k1
| |

M
k

|

M
k1
| +|

M
k
|
max(|e
k
|, |e
k1
|)
< c
k+1
max(|e
k
|, |e
k1
|) (36)
where c
k+1
is a constant which satises (max (|

M
k1
|, |

M
k
|))/
(|

M
k1
| +|

M
k
|) < c
k+1
< 1.
From (34) and (36), we can say that |e
k+1
| has the following
inequality:
|e
k+1
| < c
M
max(|e
k
|, |e
k1
|) (37)
where c
M
is a maximum value among all c
j
s for j =
2, 3, . . . , . By using (37), |e
j
| for j = 2, 3, 4, . . . , k is rep-
resented as follows:
|e
2
| < c
M
e
M
|e
3
| < c
M
max(|e
1
|, |e
2
|) < c
M
e
M
.
.
.
|e
k
| < c
k2
M
e
M
where e
M
= max(|e
0
|, |e
1
|). As a result,
lim
k
|e
k
| < lim
k
c
k2
M
e
M
= 0. (38)
In other words, p
k
converges to p
n
as iteration proceeds.
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Juyi Park (M02) received the B.S. degree in pro-
duction engineering the M.S. degree in precision en-
gineering, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engi-
neering fromthe Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (KAIST), Daejon, Korea, in 1991,
1993, and 2001, respectively.
He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University
of Texas at San Antonio from 2001 to 2002. From
2002 to 2004, he was a Research Associate in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Since,
2004, he has been working on intelligent robot controllers at the Robot R&D
Institute, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Company Ltd., Koje
City, Korea. His research interests are suppression of residual vibration in ex-
ible structures, robots for disabled people, and real-time robot controllers.
Pyung-Hun Chang (S86M89) was born in Pusan,
Korea, in 1951. He received the B.S. and M.S. de-
grees from Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul,
Korea, in 1974 and 1977, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy (MIT), Cambridge, MA, in 1987, all in mechan-
ical engineering.
From 1984 to 1987, he was involved in a research
project in the eld of robotics as a Research Assis-
tant at the Articial Intelligence Laboratory of MIT.
Since 1987, he has been on the faculty of and is nowa
PARK et al.: INPUT SHAPING TECHNIQUE FOR AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT 65
Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Insti-
tute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejon, Korea. His research interests
are high accuracy/speed control with application to mechanical systems, robust
control of nonlinear plants such as robot manipulators, and task-oriented design
of robot manipulators.
Hyung-Soon Park was born in Seoul, Korea, in
1972. He received the B.S. degree in precision en-
gineering and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechan-
ical engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute
of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejon, Korea,
in 1994, 1996, and 2004, respectively.
He is currently a Research Associate at the Re-
habilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. His
research interests include robust control algorithms,
design and control of rehabilitation robots, and tele-
operation systems.
Eunjeong Lee (S88M94) received the B.S. de-
gree from Ajou University, Suwon, Korea, in 1986,
the M.S. degree from Northwestern University,
Evanston, IL, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree from
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, in
1994, all in mechanical engineering.
She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sci-
ence at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology (KAIST), Daejon, Korea. She was an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio from 2000 to 2002. Her
research interests are biomimetics at the micro/nanoscale, MEMS, intelligent
control, and superconducting renewable evergy systems.
Dr. Lee received a University of Houston/NASA Johnson Space Cen-
ter Aerospace Postdoctoral Fellowship (19961999) and the Workshop Ma-
terial/Product Performance Award from the 1997 International Workshop on
Superconductivity. She served the IEEE Control Stytems Society as an Asso-
ciate Editor for the Conference Editorial Board from 2000 to 2002. She is also
a member of ASME.