A robust tracking controller for robotic manipulators

A robust variable structure tracking control scheme for robotic manipulators is presented. It is shown that, based on some uncertainty bounds of robotic manipulators, a robust variable structure tracking controller is designed so that strong robustness property with respect to large system uncertainties and asymptotic convergence of output tracking error with desired transient response can be guaranteed. The controller design is simple in the sense that only five controller parameters are adjusted, which depend only on some system uncertainty bounds instead of the lower and upper bounds of all system parameters. Theoretical analysis is supported by a simulation example.