On the adaptive control of robot manipulators with velocity observers

Abstract

Summary To achieve accurate tracking control of robot manipulators many schemes have been proposed. A common approach is based on adaptive control techniques, which guarantee trajectory tracking under the assumption that the robot model structure is perfectly known and linear in the unknown parameters, while joint velocities are available. Despite tracking errors tend to zero, parameter errors do not unless some persistent excitation condition is fulfilled. There are few works dealing with velocity observation in conjunction with adaptive laws. In this note, an adaptive control/observer scheme is proposed for tracking position of robot manipulators. It is shown that tracking and observation errors are ultimately bounded, with the characteristic that when a persistent excitation condition is matched then they, as well as the parameter errors, tend to zero. Simulation results are in good agreement with the developed theory.