Control of flexible joint robot system by backstepping design approach

Abstract

The control of flexible joint robot manipulators by backstepping design approach is presented. In contrast with the other controllers for flexible joint robot manipulators, the proposed controller neither assumes weak joint flexibility nor requires joint acceleration measurements. With the proposed controller, the link position and velocity errors converge to zero exponentially fast. The simulation results prove that the proposed controller performs superior to the other controllers as the flexibility increases in the joints.