Backstepping controller design for a manipulator with compliance

The driving shaft is often regarded as the rigidity component in the position control of the mechanical arm. Nevertheless, experimental studies have shown that the inherent compliant characteristic of the manipulator seriously degrades the whole system's performance. This paper proposes a backstepping control to overcome its positioning difficulty. The controller design is obtained by the Lyapunov stability analysis to guarantee the system's stabilization. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme under the influences of load disturbance and parameter uncertainties provides an encouraging positioning response by simulation results. ICIC International © 2010 ISSN.