Sliding Modes with Continuous Controllers for Robot Manipulators: Theory and Experiments

Abstract

Two passivity-based continuous controllers are proposed which guarantee desired transient response with global exponential convergence of tracking errors without any persistent excitation assumption on the regressor. The controllers ensure dynamic sliding modes without reaching phase, which gives rise to a robust performance. Robustness to a class of bounded disturbance and complex friction models are briefly addressed. A comparative experimental study validates the stability properties of the closed-loop system.