Tracking control design combined robust and adaptive scheme for flexible joint manipulators

We propose the tracking controller design for flexible joint manipulators which contain nonlinearity and uncertainty. The controller design uses robust and adaptive control based on the Lyapunov approach. We construct two subsystems via state transformation. For the first subsystem we use an adaptive algorithm independent of the bounding function and use a robust algorithm for the second subsystem. The resulting control guarantees practical stability for the transformed system and the original system. Since the proposed control does not require the uniform-bound condition on link inertia matrix it can be applied to general manipulators. History of the control algorithm is shown by simulation with a 2-link flexible joint manipulator