Trajectory tracking control for a cable-driven space manipulator using time-delay estimation and nonsingular terminal sliding mode

Trajectory tracking control is critical for cable-driven manipulators to achieve long-distance operation. However, the uncertainties and deformations caused by long-distance transmission cables make the existing trajectory tracking control methods for cable-driven space manipulators unable to meet the demand for high accuracy and strong robustness in practical engineering. In this paper, the trajectory tracking control for a new type of cable-driven large space manipulator is investigated. First, the kinematics and dynamics models of the cable-driven space manipulator are established by using the principle of virtual work. Then, a trajectory tracking control scheme is designed for the cable-driven space manipulator based on the time-delay estimation and the nonsingular terminal sliding mode control approach. The main advantage of the proposed control scheme is to improve the performance of the time-delay estimator by rationally introducing a tuning parameter, which improves the performance of the whole control system. The asymptotic stability of the resulting closed loop system is proven by the Lyapunov stability theory. The simulation and experiment results show that the proposed control scheme can effectively overcome the influence of disturbance and achieve high-precision trajectory tracking control of the cable-driven space manipulator.