A sliding mode controller for manipulator driven by artificial muscle actuator

A sliding mode controller for a manipulator driven by an artificial muscle actuator is presented which guarantees asymptotic tracking of a desired trajectory. Based on the nonlinear characteristic of the artificial muscle tube, a dynamic model of the artificial muscle actuator is formed and exploited to derive a full dynamic model for the manipulator system. By applying the sliding mode control technique and the presented full dynamic of the manipulator, a robust tracking control approach is developed for such a manipulator system. The controller consists of a feedforward control part and a sliding mode control part. Asymptotic stability of the closed-loop tracking error system is proven by means of the Lyapunov method. Some numerical case studies are provided to illustrate the performance of the control approach.