Distributed sliding mode control of cooperative robotic manipulators

In this note, we study a distributed synchronized tracking problem for multiple networked robot manipulators. A distributed control approach for a nonlinear system is given which guarantees that all the networked systems synchronize their movements while tracking a common desired trajectory. The main idea is to control each manipulator joint to track its desired trajectory while synchronizing behavior with those of other robots joints. The controller, designed by incorporating the cross coupling technology into the sliding mode control, successfully guarantees asymptotic convergence to zero of both position tracking and synchronization errors. Simulation results on multi-robot manipulators demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed strategy.