An adaptive output feedback controller for robot arms: stability and experiments

An adaptive output Feedback controller for robot arms is developed in this paper. To estimate the joint velocities, a simple nonlinear observer based on the desired velocity and bounded position tracking error is proposed. Th e closed-loop system Formed by the adaptive controller, observer and the ro bot system is shown to be semi-global asymptotically stable. Extensive expe riments conducted on a two link robot manipulator confirm the effectiveness of the proposed controller-observer structure. To highlight the performanc e of the proposed scheme, it is compared via experiments with a well-known passivity bared control algorithm. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.