Abstract
A new sliding mode controller for manipulator driven by artificial muscle actuator is presented which guarantees an asymptotic tracking of a desired trajectory. Based on the non-linear characteristic of artificial muscle tube, a dynamic model of artificial muscle actuator is formed and exploited to derive a full dynamic model for the manipulator system. By applying the sliding mode control technique and the presented full dynamic of manipulator, a robust tracking control approach is developed for such manipulator system. The controller consists of a feedforward control part and a novel sliding mode control part, so that the tracking error of the closed-loop system, which is composed by the robust controller, will converge to zero in a finite time. The asymptotic stability of the closed-loop tracking system is proven by means of the Lyapunov method, and it is also guaranteed that the control input is bounded. Some numerical case studies are provided to illustrate the performance of the control approach.
