Suppressing or inducing chaos in a model of robot arms and mechanical manipulators

We study the problems of suppressing or inducing chaotic dynamics in a simple model of robot arms and mechanical manipulators, assuming that the unperturbed systems possess multiple non-transverse homoclinic and/or heteroclinic orbits depending on the model parameters. Based on the Melnikov method and numerical computations for Melnikov integrals, fixed points, and turning points, we obtain conditions for chaos suppression and generation. We prove that the initial phase difference ψ plays an important role in suppressing or inducing chaos in complex systems. Our results indicate that these methods of controlling or inducing chaos can be easily applied to many systems in natural science and engineering. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.