Robust and optimal tracking control for manipulator arm driven by pneumatic muscle actuators

In this paper, a robust and optimal control problem for uncertain bilinear systems is formulated via a guaranteed-cost approach and then applied to tracking control design of a robotic arm actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs). Taking into account the nonlinear dynamics of the pneumatic actuators, the tracking error dynamics has been described as an uncertain bilinear systems, whereas unknown perturbations on robot dynamics and modelling mismatch are regarded as an external disturbance to be attenuated. Some numerical simulations are also given to demonstrate both robustness and optimality of the control performance in tracking desired trajectories with the required accuracy.