Decentralized robust control of mechanical systems

For mechanical systems described by Euler-Lagrange equations and involving high-order interconnections, this paper proposes a decentralized control, which guarantees the uniform ultimate stability when the control objective is tracking a smooth desired trajectory. The controller design is based on some physical properties of such systems and Lyapunov design methodology. The application of the proposed controller to robot manipulators is presented, and experiment results are included to illustrate the performance of the proposed control algorithm.