Control of a Flexible Link with Time Delays

This paper presents a control method for time-delay systems and verifies the performance of the designed control system via real experiments. Specifically, the control method is applied to a flexible-link system with time delays. The method combines time- and frequency-domain controllers: linear quadratic optimal controller (or LQR) and lag compensator. The LQR is used to stabilize the system in optimal fashion, whereas the lag compensator is used to compensate time-delay effects by increasing the delay margin of the system. With this methodology, the maximum allowable time delay can be increased significantly. The proposed method is simple but quite practical for time-delay system control as it is based on the conventional loop-shaping method, which gives practical insights on delay-phase relationship. Simulation and experiment results show that the method presented in this paper is feasible and practical.