Operational Space Control of a Lightweight Robotic Arm Actuated by Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) Wires

Abstract

This paper presents the design and control of a two link lightweight robotic arm using a couple of antagonistic Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) wires as actuators. A nonlinear robust control law for accurate positioning of the end effector of the two-link SMA based robotic arm is developed to handle the hysteresis behavior present in the system. The model presented consists of two subsystems: firstly the SMA wires model and secondly the dynamics of the robotic arm itself. The control objective is to position the robotic arm’s end effector in a given operational plane position. For this regulation problem a sliding mode control law is applied to the hysteretic system. Finally a Lyapunov analysis is applied to the closed-loop system demonstrating the stability of the system under given conditions. The simulation results demonstrate the accurate and fast response of the control law for position regulation. In addition, the stability of the closed-loop system can be corroborated.