On the Controller Design for the Outpouring Phase of the Pouring Process

The performance of a two stage control design scheme on the control of liquid outpouring and the suppression of liquid sloshing during the outpouring phase of the pouring process is studied for the case of liquid containers carried by manipulators. The designed scheme, that does not require measurements of the liquid’s motion within the tank, combines a partial inverse dynamics controller with a PID controller, tuned with the use of a “metaheuristic” search algorithm. Both controllers are designed ignoring the loss of liquid’s mass due to outpouring. The controller performance is studied using simulation results, where the liquid’s motion is modeled using a simplified pendulum-type model whose parameters vary with time accordingly with the loss of liquid’s mass. Key-Words: Robotic applications, Robot Control, Nonlinear Control, Pouring Process, Sloshing Control