Combined Optimal Control and Design of Flexible Multibody Systems

The increasing industrial relevance of high-end solutions that fulfill a wide range of requirements demands the consideration of novel approaches at an early stage of virtual product development. For instance, finding an optimal control of highly flexible mechanical systems under consideration of final constraints is essential to perform a manipulation according to a priori defined tasks [1]. In addition, innovative lightweight construction requires novel approaches in the field of structural optimization. In a recent work [2], a comprehensive review of current research activities in the field of structural optimization is shown. Both, structural optimization and optimal control problems have to be adressed by engineers, but these two challenges are usually considered independently. In this paper, the focus is on combined optimal control and structural optimization for highly flexible multibody systems. The idea of coupling both optimization tasks is promising to provide the best possible mechanical structure regarding an optimal control problem. An example of such an optimization problem is the mass minimization of a flexible robot system, where the robot is driven by torques and the tool-center point (TCP) must reach a defined state at the final time.