High accuracy trajectory tracking is a very challenging topic in direct drive
robot control. This is due to the nonlinearities and input couplings present in the
dynamics of the robot arm. This thesis is concerned with the problems of modelling
and control of a 2 degree of freedom direct drive arm. The research work is
undertaken in the following five developmental stages; Firstly, the complete
mathematical model of a 2 DOF direct drive robot arm including the dynamics of the
brushless DC motors actuators in the state variable form is to be developed. In the
second stage, the state variable model is to be decomposed into an uncertain model.
Then, the Integral Sliding Mode Controller is applied to the robot arm. In the forth
stage, perform the simulation. This is done through the simulation on the digital
computer using MATLAB/SIMULINK as the platform. Lastly, the performance of
Integral Sliding Mode Controller is to be compared with an Independent Joint Linear
Control
