Applications of Various Control Schemes on a Four-Bar Linkage Mechanism Driven by a Geared DC Motor

Four-bar linkage mechanisms are of interest for many specialists in the academia and industry. However, it is one of the mechanisms that is highly nonlinear and exhibits complex behavior. Therefore, it is difficult to model and control their dynamic responses. In this paper, various control schemes are explored and tested on the four-bar mechanism to investigate the dynamical performance under different operating conditions. First, a filtered proportional-integral-derivative controller was implemented on the mechanism and then compared with a filtered sliding mode controller, filtered fuzzy controller, and filtered genetic-based reinforcement neurocontroller. An experimental setup was built and designed at the Hashemite University to explore practically different techniques to control the position and speed of the driving link in the four-bar linkage mechanism. The main challenge in controlling the mechanism is to overcome dynamic fluctuations due to system inertias. Preliminary simulation results showed that according to the operating conditions, some controller exhibit better performance over the others.