Robust model reference adaptive control of underactuated robot manipulators

A robust control scheme, overcoming the uncertainty in an underactuated robot manipulator, is proposed based on the sliding mode and MRAC (model reference adaptive control) schemes. By introducing the model reference adaptive technique and robust control algorithm, the dynamic response of each joint of underactuated manipulators can be pre-determined without exact knowledge of the system parameters. To show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, simulations for a 2-link underactuated robot with 1 fault joint are done.