Robust Tracking Control Of The Variable Stiffness Actuator Based On The Lever Mechanism

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the design of a robust adaptive tracking control scheme for a class of variable stiffness actuators (VSAs) based on the lever mechanisms. For these VSAs based on the lever mechanisms, the AwAS‐II developed at Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is chosen as the study object, and it is an enhanced version of the original realization AwAS (actuator with adjustable stiffness). Firstly, for the dynamic model of the AwAS‐II system in the presence of parametric uncertainties, unknown bounded friction torques, unknown bounded external disturbance and input saturation constraints, by using the coordinate transformations and the static state feedback linearization, the state space model of the AwAS‐II system with composite disturbances and input saturation constraints is transformed into an uncertain multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) linear system with lumped disturbances and input saturation constraints. Subsequently, a combination of the feedback linearization, disturbance observer, sliding mode control and adaptive input saturation compensation law is adopted for the design of the robust tracking controller that simultaneously regulates the position and stiffness of the AwAS‐II system. Under the proposed controller, the semi‐global uniformly ultimately bounded stability of the closed‐loop system has been proved via Lyapunov stability analysis. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed robust adaptive tracking control scheme.