Regressor-free robot joint position tracking with prescribed performance guarantees

Fast and robust tracking against unknown disturbances is required in many modern complex robotic structures and applications for which knowledge of the full exact nonlinear system is unreasonable to assume. This paper proposes a regressor-free nonlinear controller of low complexity which ensures prescribed performance position error tracking subject to unknown endogenous and exogenous bounded dynamics assuming that joint position and velocity measurements are available. It is theoretically shown and demonstrated by a simulation study that the proposed controller can guarantee tracking of the desired joint position trajectory with a priori determined accuracy, overshoot and speed of response. Preliminary experimental results to a simplified system are promising for validating the controller to more complex structures.