Control of a Lightweight Flexible Robotic Arm Using Sliding Modes

This paper presents a robust control scheme for flexible link robotic manipulators, which is based on considering the flexible mechanical structure as a system with slow (rigid) and fast (flexible) modes that can be controlled separately. The rigid dynamics is controlled by means of a robust sliding-mode approach with wellestablished stability properties while an LQR optimal design is adopted for the flexible dynamics. Experimental results show that this composite approach achieves good closed loop tracking properties both for the rigid and the flexible dynamics

Robust decentralised variable structure control for rigid robotic manipulators

In this thesis, the problem of robust variable structure control for non-linear rigid robotic manipulators is investigated. Robustness and convergence results are presented for variable structure control systems of robotic manipulators with bounded unknown disturbances, nonlinearities, dynamical couplings and parameter uncertainties. The major outcomes of the work described in this thesis are summarised as given below. The basic variable structure theory is surveyed, and some basic ideas such as sliding mode designs, robustness analysis and control1er design methods for linear or non-linear systems are reviewed. Three recent variable structure control schemes for robotic manipulators are discussed and compared to highlight the research developments in this area. A decentralised variable structure model reference adaptive control scheme is proposed for a class of large scale systems. It is shown that, unlike previous decentralised variable structure control schemes, the local variable structure controller design in this scheme requires only three bounds of the subsystem matrices and dynamical interactions instead of the upper and the lower bounds of all unknown subsystem parameters. Using this scheme, not only asymptotic convergence of the output tracking error can be guaranteed, but also the controller design is greatly simplified. In order to eliminate chattering caused by the variable structure technique, local boundary layer controllers are presented. Furthermore, the scheme is applied to the tracking control of robotic manipulators with the result that strong robustness and asymptotic convergence of the output tracking error are obtained

Design of Super Twisting Integral Sliding Mode Control for Industrial Robot Manipulator

In the present work, integral sliding mode based continuous control algorithm is extended to multi input multi output system. The typical integral sliding mode control (ISMC) contains nominal control with discontinuous feedback control due to which overall control becomes discontinuous in nature. The proposed controller is a fusion of two continuous terms and one of which is able to handle, estimate and reject the disturbance successfully. A proposed robust ISMC technique is applied for industrial robot manipulators which utilizes interactive manipulation activity. Here, robust position tracking control obtained via ISMC principle for two link IRM scheme influenced by parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. The proposed ISMC design replaces the discontinuous part by continuous control, which super twisting control is able to handle the disturbance rejection completely. The effectiveness of the proposed control technique is tested under uncertain conditions and comparison study with other controllers has been done. The simulation result shows that the tracking error is effectively minimized by the proposed technique in presence of uncertain conditions