This paper presents a nonlinear distributed control strategy for flexible-link manipulators to solve the tracking control problem in the joint space and cancel vibrations of the links. First, the dynamic of an n-flexible-link manipulator is decomposed into n subsystems. Each subsystem has a pair of one joint and one link. The distributed control strategy is applied to each subsystem starting from the last subsystem. The strategy of control consists in controlling the nth joint and stabilizing the nth link by assuming that the remaining subsystems are stable. Then, going backward to the (n − 1)th subsystem, the same control strategy is applied to each corresponding joint-link subsystem until the first. Sliding mode technique is used to develop the control law of each subsystem and the global stability of the resulting tracking errors is proved using the Lyapunov technique. This algorithm was tested on a two-flexible-link manipulator and gave effective results, a good tracking performance, and capability to eliminate the links' vibrations.
