Disturbance estimation based tracking control for a robotic manipulator

A tracking control algorithm based on a disturbance estimation scheme is studied. The tracking control problem is formulated as a disturbance rejection problem, with all the system nonlinearities and uncertainties lumped into disturbance. A disturbance estimation scheme is proposed, which is based on a nominal linear plant dynamics plus proportional error feedback corrections. The tracking control of a telescopic robot arm is used as an example to verify the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm is compared against a classical adaptive control and a sliding mode control algorithm