Optimal sliding mode control design based on the state-dependent Riccati equation for cooperative manipulators to increase dynamic load carrying capacity

Abstract

SUMMARY Cooperative manipulators have uncertainties in their structure; therefore, an optimal sliding mode control method is derived from a combination of the sliding mode control (SMC) and the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) technique. This proposed combination is applied to a class of non-linear closed-loop systems. One of the distinguished features of this control method is its robustness toward uncertainty. Due to the lack of optimality in the SMC method, in this paper, a robust and optimal method is presented by considering the SDRE in design of the sliding surface. Due to the fact that cooperative manipulators have been used for carrying loads, the percentage of load distributions between each manipulator has been derived to increase the dynamic load carrying capacity (DLCC). The proposed control structure is implemented on a Scout robot with two manipulators in cooperative mode, theoretically and practically using LabVIEW software; and the results were compared by considering the uncertainty in its structure. In comparison with the SDRE, the proposed method increased the DLCC almost 10% in the Scout case.