An Experimental Comparison of Robust Control Algorithms On a Direct Drive Manipulator

Abstract

In this paper we present an experimental comparison of recent passivity based robust control algorithms on a two link direct drive robot arm. The manipulator is actuated with high torque brushless DC motors and is controlled by a DSP development system interfaced to a PC486 workstation. Four algorithms are compared with respect to ease of design, implementation, and performance of the closed loop systems. 1 Introduction In this paper we summarize the results of a systematic comparison of passivity based robust control algorithms on the two--link direct drive robot manipulator shown below in Figure (1). Four algorithms are compared with respect to ease of design, implementation, and performance of the closed--loop system. The reader is referred to the report [5] for the complete study, which also includes data for additional algorithms beyond those presented here. The manipulator used in the study, known as D2R2, was constructed with Compumotor Model DM1015-B brushless DC motors, contr..