Terminal slider control of robot systems

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Many robotic systems would, in the future, be required to operate in environments that are highly unstructured (with varying dynamical properties) and active (possessing means of self-actuation). Although a significant volume of results exist in model-based, robust and adaptive control literature, many issues pertinent to the stabilization of contact interactions with unpredictable environments remain unresolved, especially in dealing with large magnitude and high frequency parametric uncertainties. The primary intent of this paper is nonlinear control synthesis for robotic operations in unstructured environments. We introduce the notion oftime constrained terminal convergence for controlled systems, and propose an approach to nonlinear control synthesis based upon a new class of sliding modes, denotedterminal sliders. Terminal controllers that enforce finite convergence to equilibrium are synthesized for an example nonlinear system (with and without parametric uncertainties). Improved performance is demonstrated through the elimination of high frequency control switching, employed previously for robustness to parametric uncertainties [2]. The dependence of terminal slider stability upon the rate of change of uncertainties over the sliding surface, rather than the magnitude of the uncertainty itself, results in improved control robustness. Improved reliability is demonstrated through the elimination ofinterpolation regions [2]. Finally, improved (guaranteed) precision is argued for through an analysis of steady state behavior.