Finite-time control of robotic manipulators

This work offers the solution at the control feed-back level of the accurate trajectory tracking subject to finite-time convergence. Dynamic equations of a rigid robotic manipulator are assumed to be uncertain. Moreover, globally unbounded disturbances are allowed to act on the manipulator when tracking the trajectory. Based on the suitably defined non-singular terminal sliding vector variable and the Lyapunov stability theory, we propose a class of absolutely continuous robust controllers which seem to be effective in counteracting both uncertain dynamics and unbounded disturbances. The numerical simulation results carried out for a robotic manipulator consisting of two revolute kinematic pairs operating in a two-dimensional joint space illustrate performance of the proposed controllers. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.