A centralized/decentralized approach to the robust control of a robotic manipulator

This paper is concerned about solving the robust servomechanism problem for a rigid robotic manipulator for the case of set point reference inputs that tend to constant values. It is shown that by using a combination of centralized and decentralized control, this problem can be solved and global asymptotic stability of the closed loop system can be achieved, under a wide class of variations of the manipulator´s load and dynamics. The implementation of the controller obtained only requires that an approximation of some of the manipulator´s parameters be available. An example of a two link rigid robotic manipulator is included to illustrate the type of results obtained.