COMPOSITE ADAPTIVE-CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE JOINT ROBOTS

A composite adaptive controller is developed for flexible joint robots with inertia parameter uncertainty. It does not require any restricti ons on the joint stiffness, since a full-order dynamic model is used i n the design and stability analysis. previously published results base d on the fourth-order model requite at least joint jerk feedback and d erivatives of the manipulator regressor (up to the second-order). In c ontrast, the proposed adaptive controller requires at most joint accel eration feedback. Its adaptive law is of the same complexity as the we ll-known Slotine and Li's algorithm for rigid-body robots. Asymptotic stability of the adaptive controller is established in the Lyapunov se nse. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the tracking perfo rmance.