Redesign of Robust Controllers for RLFJ Robotic Manipulators Actuated with Harmonic Drives

Abstract

In this paper, we redesign a previously developed robust tracking controller for rigid-link flexible-joint (RLFJ) robot manipulators to handle flexibilities specifically introduced by harmonic drive gasing. A non realistic, and consequently super complex model for the input transmission dynamics which includes frictional losses, kinematic order and nonlinear compliances is utilised. The stability result achieved for our proposed nonlinear custmos that the link tracking error is Globally Uniformly Ultimately Bounded (GUUB), in spite of additive bounded disturbances, parametric uncertainty, and the process of complex non-negligible actuator dynamics.