A new class of adaptive control laws for rigid robots

A new class of adaptive controller is presented for rigid robots. The novelty of our results are due to the adaptive laws adjusting the control gains directly, rather than providing an explicit estimate of inertia parameters. These parameters are then used in the control law. Furthermore, only four control gains should be adjusted adaptively, and that number is determined independently of the number of degrees-of-freedom of robotic manipulators. The regressor matrix used by the control law is calculated with respect to the desired trajectory. It is shown that the control strategies are globally stable in the presence of a class of state-dependent uncertainties, and the tracking error can be made arbitrarily small.<>