A Frequency-Dependent Direct Adaptive Scheme for Robot Manipulators: A Case of Model-Following Motion Control

This paper presents a new frequency-dependent direct adaptive scheme for the optimal and/or suboptimal tracking of the motion of a prescribed model. The idea is based on a closed-loop control scheme in which an _{2 H} optimal/suboptimal controller is applied in parallel with a direct adaptive technique to guide a robot manipulator to follow a certain prescribed trajectory. The H ₂ compensators have to be proper and positively bounded with respect to all dynamic frequencies. Robustness issues are addresses in the paper by lumping all the nonlinear dynamic terms such as the centrifugal and Coriolis effects as well as the mechanical and electrical friction forces of the robot arm, into a general unstructured uncertainty term.