The paper presents a new method for online identification of pay-loads for a two-link flexible robot. The method benefits from the close correspondance between parameters of a discrete-time model represented by means of the Delta-Operator, and those of the underlying continuous-time model. Although the applied principle might be general in nature, the paper is applied to the well-known problem of identifying a pay-load of a moving flexible robot. This problem is almost impossible to solve by measurements, so an estimation technique must be applied. The presented method benefits from the close correspondance with the continuous-time representation to allow a scalar and implicit adaptive technique which based on flexibility measurements leads to the online estimation of the pay-load.
Keywords: Flexible Link Robot; Delta-Operator; System Identification; Parameter Estimation; Adaptive Control.