Adaptive Sliding Mode Coordinated Control of Multiple Robot Arms Handling One Constrained Object

When a common object, grasped by multiple robot arms, is cooperatively manipulated to move along a constrained surface, the control task requires the simultaneous control of the motion trajectory of the grasped object on the constrained surface; the constrained force due to the contact with the surface; and the internal force exerted by the arms on the object. To accomplish such a control objective, an adaptive sliding mode control algorithm is presented by developing a new concise dynamic model of the system and exploiting its particular properties. Detailed analysis on the tracking properties of the object´s position, the constrained force, and the internal force are given. The stability analysis shows that the proposed algorithm can achieve satisfactory tracking performance.