Hybrid adaptive control for tracking of rigid-link flexible-joint robots

A hybrid adaptive tracking controller for rigid-link flexible-joint (RLFJ) robot manipulators is designed. The controller is hybrid in the sense that an adaptive indirect controller is used to compensate for parametric uncertainties in the rigid-link equation whereas an adaptive robust controller corrects for the dynamics and parametric uncertainty associated with the actuators. That is, in spite of these detrimental uncertainties and effects, one is still able to ensure a global asymptotic stability result for the link position tracking error.