Robust prescribed performance tracking control for free-floating space manipulators with kinematic and dynamic uncertainty

This paper investigates the task-space prescribed performance tracking control problem of free-floating space manipulators with kinematic and dynamic uncertainty. In order to formulate and solve this prescribed performance tracking problem on SE(3), we first select a suitable tracking error vector and prescribed performance bound which characterizes the minimum convergence rate and maximum overshoot of the tracking error vector. Then, two robust tracking controllers based on the prescribed performance bound are designed to solve the tracking control problem. Compared with the existing work on the guaranteeing prescribed performance control, a linear switching surface is incorporated into the controller design procedure, which makes it easy to cope with kinematic and dynamic uncertainty. A rigorous mathematical stability proof is given. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed controller. (C) 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.