Dynamic compensation of a robot arm mounted on a flexible arm

A system including:

• a boom supported from a boom base, said boom having a robot arm mounted by a robot base therefrom, said robot arm having an end effector, said boom being moveable relative to said boom base by a boom controller interfaced with a boom actuator to position said robot base to a programmed location, said robot arm being movable by a robot arm controller interfaced with a robot arm actuator to position said end effector at a programmed position and orientation;
• and,
• a control system having a tracker system to track a position of the robot base based on a position of a first target located by an offset proximal to said robot base;
• wherein said tracker system tracks the position of said first target and feeds data to said boom controller while the control system operates said boom actuator to position and orientate said first target close to said offset and thereby position said robot base close to said programmed location, and said tracker system tracks a position of the end effector based on a position and orientation of a second target located with a tool centre point (TCP) offset from an end effector TCP, and said tracker system tracks the position and orientation of said second target while the boom actuator moves the robot base and feeds data derived from said second target and said first target to said robot arm controller while the control system operates said robot arm actuator to position and orientate said end effector TCP to said programmed position and orientation;
• wherein said boom controller operates said boom actuator with a slow dynamic response, and the robot arm controller operates said robot arm actuator with a fast dynamic response to thereby compensate for boom motion errors and deflection;
• and the fast dynamic response is faster than a natural frequency of the boom and the slow dynamic response is slower than the natural frequency of the boom.