A CONTROLLER DESIGN GUARARNTEEING PRECISE TRAJAECTORY FOLLOWING FOR A ROBOTIC MANIPULATOR

A controller synthesis procedure for precise tracking of reference inputs in the sense of spheres is applied to a 3 d.o.f. robotic manipulator. This methodology applies to a class of nonlinear systems with input uncertainty and parameter uncertainty. The 3 d.o.f. manipulator to be controlled is subjected to varying payloads and is required to follow specified joint trajectories to within prespecified tolerances. The design procedure above lends itself naturally to this type of control problem. The appeal of such a design procedure lies on a special decomposition which exploits linear control theory on the one hand and facilitates a separate treatment of the effects of nonlinearities and the uncertainties on the other.