An Approach to the Dynamics and Control of Uncertain Robot Manipulators

In this paper, a novel constraint-following control for uncertain robot manipulators that is inspired by analytical dynamics is developed. The motion can be regarded as external constraints of the system. However, it is not easy to obtain explicit equations for dynamic modeling of constrained systems. For a multibody system subject to motion constraints, it is a common practice to introduce Lagrange multipliers, but using these to obtain explicit dynamical equations is a very difficult task. In order to obtain such equations more simply, motion constraints are handled here using the Udwadia-Kalaba equation(UKE). Then, considering real-life robot manipulators are usually uncertain(but bounded), by using continuous controllers compensate for the uncertainties. No linearizations/approximations of the robot manipulators systems are made throughout, and the tracking errors are bounds. A redundant manipulator of the SCARA type as the example to illustrates the methodology. Numerical results are demonstrates the simplicity and ease of implementation of the methodology.