Robust tracking via sliding mode control for elastic joint manipulators

Abstract

A new scheme is presented for the robust tracking control of robot manipulators in the presence of model uncertainty and disturbances. Based on the robust sliding mode control methodology, the control scheme addresses the following problem: given the extent of parametric uncertainty and the external uncertainties, design a non-linear sliding mode controller to achieve robust tracking precision. The explicit robustness guarantees provided by the methodology are demonstrated using elastic joint manipulator models. The methodology is compared with the traditional feedback linearization.