Design of a Computed Torque Controller based Joint Controller for PUMA 560 Manipulator

This paper presents the development of computed torque controller based individual joint controller for the PUMA 560 robot manipulator. Conventionally, this controller works well when all the required physical parameters of the manipulator are known. But sometimes, it is hard to find all such parameters due to practical difficulties. This paper presents a solution to this problem where important parameters of the manipulator are missing. The controller was developed by 3D modelling the manipulator using SOLIDWORKS^TM to extract the latter important parameters and then using such data in the MATLAB^TM Simulink^TM environment for controller development. The performance of the controller was evaluated for percentage overshoot, settling time and the steady state error for step inputs. Further, the performance was evaluated by giving the spline coordinates to the system and considering the tracking error. For both the cases, the designed controller by using proposed methodology satisfied the performance specifications.