Adaptive control in robotic systems with \(H^\infty\) tracking performance (Q1354862)

The authors of this paper propose a new adaptive tracking control design to solve the problem of adaptive model reference tracking with guarangeed \(H^\infty\) performance for rigid robotic systems with unknown parameters and external disturbances. The motivation for the authors' work is motion control for industrial manipulators. Uncertainties are unavoidable in any practical robotic system; in particular, a robotic arm may well receive unpredictable interference from the environment in which it resides. This means that it is necessary to consider the effects of parameter uncertainties and external disturbances on any proposed tracking control algorithm. The authors introduce a novel model for unknown disturbance signals which appears to improve adaptive tracking performance significantly. They show that both singular and non-singular \(H^\infty\) adaptive control problems can be solved globally and algebraically via the solution to a matrix Riccati equation.