Robust Sliding Mode Control for Flexible Joint Robotic Manipulator via Disturbance Observer

In a flexible joint robotic manipulator, parametric variations and external disturbances result in mismatch uncertainties thus posing a great challenge in terms of manipulator’s control. This article investigates non-linear control algorithms for desired trajectory tracking of a flexible manipulator subjected to mismatch perturbations. The manipulator’s dynamics is derived based on Euler-Lagrange approach followed by the design of nonlinear control laws. The traditional Sliding Mode Control and Integral Sliding Mode Control failed to demonstrate adequate performance due to complex system dynamics. Disturbance Observer-based Sliding Mode Control has been thoroughly examined by defining a novel sliding manifold. The aforementioned control laws are designed and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment to characterize the control performance. Results demonstrated that the proposed Disturbance Observer based Sliding Mode Control scheme over-performed on Sliding Mode Control variants and had three prominent features: robustness against mismatch uncertainty, improved chattering behaviour and ability to sustain nominal control performance of the system

Adaptive Task-Space Regulation of Rigid-Link Flexible-Joint Robots with Uncertain Kinematics

International audienceIn this paper, an adaptive control scheme is proposed for the regulation problem of rigid-link flexible-joint (RLFJ) robots with uncertain kinematics. Existing research works in literature on RLFJ robot control assume exact knowledge of the kinematics of robot, and no result that can deal with kinematics uncertainty in RLFJ robot has been proposed so far. This paper presents the first study addressing this problem. The adaptive control scheme proposed can deal with the kinematics uncertainty and uncertainties in both link and actuator dynamics of the RLFJ robot system. A nonlinear observer is designed to avoid the use of acceleration due to the fourth-order overall dynamics. Asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system is shown and sufficient conditions are presented to guarantee the stability. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method