Fuzzy Sliding-Mode Control of a Variable Geometry Manipulator: Experimental Investigation

Abstract

Abstract This paper focuses a robust and knowledge-based control approach for multi-link robot manipulator systems. Based on the concepts of sliding-mode control and fuzzy logic control (FLC), a fuzzy sliding-mode controller has been developed in previous work. This controller possesses good robustness properties of sliding-mode control and the flexibility and ‘intelligent’ capabilities of knowledge-based control through the use of fuzzy logic. This paper presents experimental studies with fuzzy sliding-mode control as well as conventional sliding-mode control. The results show that the tracking error is guaranteed to converge to a specification in the presence of uncertainties. The performance of the fuzzy sliding-mode controller is found to be somewhat better than that of the conventional sliding-mode controller.