Decentralized robust tracking control for uncertain robots

To realize decentralized robust tracking control for robots with uncertain parameters, a new design method is proposed. A robust tracking controller designed by this method consists of two parts: a feedforward controller and a feedback robust controller. A feedforward control is first applied and error dynamics are introduced. For each joint error subsystem a robust controller is designed in two steps: first, a nominal controller is designed for the nominal plant to achieve desired tracking performance, then a robust compensator is added to restrain the influence of the perturbation, that is the difference of the real plant from the nominal plant. The controller designed by the proposed method is a linear time-invariant one. It is shown that robust stability and robust tracking property can be achieved by applying the controller with a sufficiently wide frequency bandwidth. An important feature of the method is that the controller parameters can be tuned on-line easily.