A novel constraint tracking control with sliding mode control for industrial robots

As industrial robots are characterized by flexibility, load variation, and unknown interference, it is necessary to develop a control strategy with strong robustness and adaptability, fast convergence rate, and simple structure. Sliding mode control is a special method widely used to handle nonlinear robot control. However, the existing control law for sliding mode control has limitations in the chattering and convergence rate. The sliding mode manifold and reaching law are firstly discussed in this article. In the meanwhile, a proposed control law for sliding mode control combining linear sliding mode manifold and double-power reaching law is developed, which is based on the robot dynamic equation derived by the Udwadia–Kalaba theory. Furthermore, a compared control law for sliding mode control combining linear sliding mode manifold with exponential reaching law is presented to test the proposed control law for sliding mode control. The comparison indicates that the proposed law effectively improves the performance in convergence rate and the chattering of constraint tracking control. Finally, the two control laws for sliding mode control are applied to the Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm robot system with modeling error and uncertain external disturbance to demonstrate the merit and validation of the proposed scheme.