COMPARATIVE EXPERIMENTS WITH A NEW ADAPTIVE CONTROLLER FOR ROBOT ARMS

This paper presents a new model-based adaptive controller and proof of its global asymptotic stability with respect to the standard rigid-bo dy model of robot-arm dynamics. Experimental data from a study of one new and several established globally asymptotically stable adaptive co ntrollers on two very different robot arms 1) demonstrate the superior tracking performance afforded by the model-based algorithms over conv entional PD control, 2) demonstrate and compare the superior performan ce of adaptive model-based algorithms over their nonadaptive counterpa rts, 3) reconcile several previous contrasting empirical studies, and 4) examine contexts that compromise their advantage.