PD Control Performance of Robotic Mechanisms

This paper presents the development of system performance measures for robotic mechanisms operating under model-based PD control. These performance measures are determined based on the so-called "system performance ellipsoids" which are defined using control parameters, the manipulator Jacobian, and the inertia matrix. Thus, they depend not only on the kinematics or dynamics of the manipulator, but also on the control algorithm. The performance measures are used as a tool for analysing and evaluating the correlation between trajectory tracking errors and workspace location. As an example, all results are derived for the two-link planar manipulator models.