Adaptive control of a cable-actuated parallel manipulator mounted on a platform with differential wheels under payload uncertainty

Cable-actuated parallel Manipulators (CPMs) are widely employed for object handling applications. In order to displace the carried object along the ground to an unlimited distance, the CPMs can be mounted on wheeled mobile robots (WMRs). The derivation of the dynamic equations of motion for this integrated system is presented using Lagrange method. Since in load carrying task, the inertia of the moving load is the main source of uncertainty, an adaptive control approach is considered for the CPM, whereas the WMR uses a feedback linearized sliding mode approach. In order to maintain the end-effector of the CPM in within its relative workspace in the WMR frame, the convergence rate in the two controllers should be similar. Decentralization of the control law can be accomplished if the inertia of the CPM motors are negligible compared with the other inertias of the system. This assumption is shown to be applicable if an introduced index is small enough to have noticeable effect on the tracking error.