Conclusions of 5-year investigations in sliding mode control of manipulators

Sliding mode control is applied in point-to-point motions of robot manipulators. The sliding manifold is defined by nonlinear saturated functions, one for each manipulator joint, taking into account constraints on velocities. To avoid chattering, a continuous PID-like control law is used inside a boundary-layer along the sliding manifold. The stability has been investigated via passivity arguments, and the performance has been shown by experiments on an industrial robot with a 3-DOF anthropoid arm, and on a servomechanism with compliant joint.