SUMMARYThis paper presents an adaptive distributed control strategy for n-serial-flexible-link manipulators. The proposed adaptive controller is used for flexible-link-manipulators: (1) to solve the tracking control problem in the joint space, and (2) to reduce vibrations of the links. The dynamical model of flexible link manipulators is reorganized to take the form of n interconnected subsystems. Each subsystem has a one-joint and one-link pair. The system parameters are deemed to be unknown. The adaptive distributed strategy controls one subsystem in each step, starting from the last one. The nth subsystem is controlled by assuming that the remaining subsystems are stable. Then, proceeding backward to the (n-1)th system, the same strategy is applied, and so on, until the first subsystem is reached. The gradient-based estimator is used to estimate the parameters of each subsystem. The control law of the ith subsystem uses its own estimated parameters and the estimated parameters of all upper level subsystems. The global stability of the error dynamics is proved using Lyapunov approach. This algorithm was implemented in real time on a two-flexible-link manipulator, and a comparison with the non-adaptive version shows the effectiveness of this approach.