Robust variable structure and adaptive control of single-arm dynamics

The authors present a control law which is a combination of the continuous variable structure control (VSC) law and the switching-σ modification control law for the control of a single-arm manipulator with rigid links holding a rigid object. In the analysis, it is shown that this new control law has a smaller error bound than a simply continuous VSC law or switching-σ modification control law. Some simulation results are presented in which the proposed control law has better tracking precision performance both in a transient state and a steady state and which agree with the theoretical analysis are presented. The control law still maintains good tracking precision even if the actuator unmodeled dynamics are considered