The use of lightweight robotic manipulators in advanced assembly and manufacturing applications is hindered by the end-effector positional inaccuracies induced by the structural deformations of the arm. To address this problem, a macro- and micro-manipulator system is considered herein. Three rigid and flexible motion controllers, consisting of an integral plus state feedback controller (ISFC), linear quadratic regulator with an integral action (LQI) and a fuzzy logic controller (FLC), have been implemented in this study. The performances of these controllers are compared based on achieving zero steady-state error in the rigid body angular displacement of the beam, damping out the unwanted vibrations, rendering the end-effector insensitive to the vibrations of the arm, and avoiding excessive control torque requirements. The digital simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the FLC over the ISFC and LQI in damping out the vibrations of the beam and reducing the gripper positional inaccuracies while requiring relatively smaller control torques. Furthermore, the results clearly demonstrate the robustness of the FLC to significant variations in the payload mass.
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