SIMPLE ROBUST R-ALPHA TRACKING CONTROLLERS FOR UNCERTAIN FULLY-ACTUATED MECHANICAL SYSTEMS

We consider the problem of designing robust tracking controllers for u ncertain fully-actuated mechanical systems. We propose controllers whi ch are robust r - alpha tracking controllers in the following sense. F or a prespecified rate of convergence alpha > 0 and a prespecified tol erance r > 0, a proposed controller guarantees that the system's traje ctory exponentially converges to any desired trajectory with rate a an d ro within the tolerance v. Controller design is based on Lyapunov fu nctions. The main advantage of these controllers is their simplicity. These controllers do not use the regressor matrix made popular in the area of robotic control which makes them simple to implement. Applicat ion to a two-link robotic manipulator is presented. Numerical simulati on results are included.