Robot control using a sliding mode

Abstract

The dynamical model of robot manipulator is represented by a system of equations which are nonlinear and strongly coupled. Furthermore, the inertial parameters of the manipulator depend on the payload which is often unknown and variable. So, to avoid these problems we studied a variable structure system which is well suited for robotic arms. To this end an application of the sliding mode control based on a variable structure system for a four degrees of freedom robot is described in this paper. This technique suppresses the uncertainties due to parametric variations, external disturbances and variable payloads. To prove these advantages, this technique is applied to the regulation (point to point) control of a SCARA robot. The aim of this work is to show the practical realization and to demonstrate the robustness and the validity of this control law for the robot manipulator via experimental results obtained.