One step ahead nonlinear predictive control of two links robot manipulators

Rigid link manipulators have attracted more and more attention from robot control theorists and robot users because of its various potential advantages. However, their nonlinear dynamics present a challenging control problem, since traditional linear control approaches do not easily apply. For a while, the difficulty was mitigated by the fact that manipulators were highly geared, thereby strongly reducing the interactive dynamic effects between links. In this work a fixed one step ahead nonlinear predictive control has been applied to compute time optimal solutions for a two link manipulator operating in the horizontal plane subject to control angle positions, where the solution is obtained by minimizing a cost function. Tracking performances of the controller are investigated via some simulations.