An application of a self-tuning controller on a robotic manipulator

In this paper real-time control of the gripper of a robotic manipulator using a self-tuning adaptive controller is described. The self-tuning controller used is a modified version of the MURHAC controller. The results presented in the paper are compared with the results of an optimally adjusted multi-loop/multifeedforward path controller, designed by an industrial company for the control of fast robots. It is shown that the performance of the self-tuning controller for fixed parameters in a small working area is comparable with the performance of this specially designed controller. It is however shown that the overall performance of the MURHAC controller is better than that of the industrial controller, due to the adaptivity of the MURHAC controller. Moreover, it is claimed that the self-tuning controller can easily be adjusted and can be tuned with fewer parameters than the industrial controller.