Robot Trajectory Control in Cartesian Space with Sliding Modes

Kemalettin Erbatur
Robotics and Automation Group m I T A K Marmara Research Centre Gebze-Kocaeli TURKEY
FdX:

Asif Sabanovic
B&H Engineering and Consulting

Okyay Kaynak
UNESCO Chair on Mechatronics Bogaziqi University 80815 Bebek-Istanbul T T K Y ZRE Fax: +90 212 257 5030

Company Ulus-Istanbul TURKEY Fax: +90 212 270 5354

+90 262 641 2309

Abstract - Trajectory generation and tracking in Cartesian space are essential in many industrial robotics applications. A control method using the relation between the force applied to the tool tip and joint torques is applied in this paper to track desired trajectories specified in Cartesian space. The controlled variables are the coordinates of the tip of the robot. The coupled and nonlinear dynamics involved cause difficulties in the robot control. The dynamics equations when expressed in tip coordinates get even more complicated. Variable structure systems based control methodologies are proposed in the literature to overcome the difficulties encountered, without using elaborated models of the plants to be controlled. High frequency oscillations in the joint velocities - chattering - , is a problem faced when using such methods. A chattering free sliding mode control algorithm is considered here in order to deal with the complicated dynamics without causing oscillations in the velocity. Variable structure systems and Lyapunov designs are combined in the method implemented. The controller possesses the robustness properties of sliding mode systems. Experiment results obtained with a direct drive SCARA type manipulator are presented.

I. INTRODUCTION

Trajectory generation and tracking in Cartesian space are essential in industrial robotics applications where the manipulating task is defined in world coordinates. Many algorithms which mostly use inverse kinematics solutions to work with world coordinates are considered in the literature [l-61. A simple solution for tracking in Cartesian world coordinates can be obtained by using a fictitious force acting on the tip of the robot tool as the control input and converting it to actuator torques by the transposed manipulator Jacobian to obtain the actual driver command inputs. The controlled variables in this method are the end effector coordinates expressed in the Cartesian world coordinate frame. This makes the specification of Cartesian paths extremely simple. The success of the method mentioned above relies on the performance of the controller used. In the trajectory control of robot manipulators, the major goals are to reduce the errors generated by external disturbances and to minimize various types of disturbing effects inherent in the robot dynamics. The dynamics involved is coupled and nonlinear. This makes robot control a difficult problem. The dynamics equations when expressed in the end effector coordinates get even more complicated.

In this paper a sliding mode controller design with minimum information about the plant dynamics is considered for nonlinear plants which are linear with respect to the control input. In motion control applications, if the dynamics of the actuators can be neglected, the control plant is driven by a torque or force vector, that is by a continuous control input. Any discontinuity in the control is, thus, artificially introduced. The result is that acceleration gets discontinuous and this is reflected as high frequency oscillations in the velocity. This type of oscillations are called chattering [7]. The algorithm presented combines variable structure systems and Lyapunov designs [S-101 and possesses all robustness properties of sliding mode systems while avoiding the unnecessary dmontinuity of the control and thus eliminating chattering. Neither the explicit calculation of the equivalent control [ll-141 nor high gain inside a boundary layer [15] are used. Implementation results with this method for joint space control applications are reported in [16-191. The next section describes the derivation of the control law. Section 3 introduces the kinematics and dynamics of a SCARa type direct drive two degrees of freedom robot and carries out derivations for the application of the control law to this specific manipulator. Implementation results with this manipulator are presented in Section 4. Conclusions are given in Section 5 . 11. SLIDING MODE CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN
A general derivation of the control law will be carried out firstly for systems which can be represented in the following form.

2, = f l t x l J 2 )
i 2

+ B, (XI ,-%>U + B, (XI M O In this state space description x, ER"-" , x, E R " , U Rm,runk(B,) = m. d represents the disturbance. The components of the control input and the derivative of xz are bounded with known bounds. That the dynamics equations of a robot can be written in this form will be shown later in this section. The aim of the sliding mode controller is to drive the states of the system into the set S defined by s = {x: F ( t ) - 6,(x) = Q ( X , t ) = 0). (3
= f2
(XI J 2 )
9x2

(1) (2)

0-7803-2775-6196 $4.00 0 1996 IEEE

189

Here x is the state vector obtained by augmenting andx,. p(t) is the time dependent part of the sliding function o ( x , t ) and contains reference inputs to be applied to the controlled plant. o,(x)denotes the state ( dependent part of o x,t ) . Specifically,
X,

t - = t - A , A-0

or, using (9),

Geq( t )= ~ ( t - )(G2B2)-' + 0
where Qeq is an estimate for the equivalent control. Substituting equation (15) in (12), we obtain
u(t) = ~ ( t - )(G,B,)-'(Do

cro =Gixl +G,x, ,

(4)

s where the matrix G2 i of rank m. The derivation of the control involves the selection of a and Lyapunov function (0) a desired form for V , the derivative of the Lyapunov function. The selected Lyapunov function is

+ &)I,=,.

(16)

v = OTO/2.
Therefore,

(5) (6)

Thus, the term (G2Bz)-1(Do+&)If=f- used in is updating a recursive formula for the control input. On the sliding manifold, u ( t - ) becomes the same as the equivalent control. Since the control is bounded, the saturation function is added to the control law above:
u ( t ) =sat[u(t-) (G,B,)-'(Do+&)~,=,.] +

li=oTiF.
It is desired that
V = -nTDn

(17)

(7) where D is a positive definite matrix. Thus, the derivative of the Lyapunov function will be negative definite and this will ensure stability. The last two equations together lead to

This completes the derivation of the control law for the general case. In the following, the dynamics equations of a robot will be shown to obey (1) and (2). Robot dynamics relations can be expressed as M ( 4 ) i + h(4,4) = 7 * (18) In this expression q is the vector of joint angles or displacements, z is the torque vector applied to the joints, M is the inertia matrix, h is the vector of centrifugal and Coriolis forces, gravity and friction effects. Using (18), a dynamics equation in workspace can be found as follows. The position X and the velocity J? of the end effector of the robot are related to joint positions and velocities with the following equations.

crT(Dcr+&)= 0 . A solution for the equation above is

(8)

(Do+d-)=O. (9) The expression for the derivative for the sliding function is
C r = @ - G , f , - G 2 ( f 2+B,u+B,d) and thus, when (Dcr + &) = 0 we have that
~

(10)

= -d

+ (G,B,)-'[@- Gzf2- GJ]

c
(1 1)

x =f( 4 )
J? = J(q)q

(19)

+ (G,B,)-'DO
From the equations (10-11) above, it can be noted that when the part of the control input in equation (11) designated by ueq is applied to the system, the derivative of the sliding function cr will be zero. Such a control is termed "equivalent control" in sliding mode control terminology. Thus, the control input is
u(t) = ueq(t)+ (G,B,)-*Do.

(20) Here f represents the forward kinematics equations and J is the manipulator Jacobian. Differentiating (20), the following equation is obtained for the acceleration of the end effector.

Y=Jq+Jq
From (1S), we have
q = M-'(T-h).

(21)

(22)

(12)

Substitution of (22) into (21) yields 2=JM-'(Z-h)+&. (23) In regions where the manipulator Jacobian J is invertible, by , multiplying each side of (23) by (JT)-'MJ-' we obtain
(Jr)-'MJ-'Y = (JT)-'(z- h) + ( J T ) - ' W - ' &

We can see from equation (11) that ueq t ) is " l t , ( if not impossible, to calculate. Considering the fact that ueq( t )is a smooth function, we can write from equation
(12) that

(24)
(25)

u,(t) = u ( t f )- (G,BJ'DO
where

(13)

which can be written as

+ h ( X , k )= F

190

A force F acting on the end effector is related to joint torques by the transposed Jacobian [20,211 as

B, = E-'(x').

(37)

(26) and F in (25) is the control input expressed in the task space:
F
=(JT)-'r.

z = JTF

Thus, the dynamics equations in task space can be represented as in form (1,2) and we can use the sliding mode controller described above to control workspace coordinates. 1 1 THE MANIPULATOR 1.

(27)

This vector is composed of directional forces and torques acting on the end effector.

F = (F,,F,,F,,n,,n,,n,)'.

A SCARA type two dof direct drive a m sketched in Fig. 1 r will be introduced in this section and a controller of the structure described in the previous section will be designed for this manipulator. The equations of motion for this arm in joint space can be written as in (18) with

+ 2p3 'OS(qZ)
P + P3 cos(92) 2

p2 + p3 c0s(q2)

P z

Disturbance effects can be added to expression (25) by introducing F ,an extemal disturbance force. '

(38) (3 9)

m+h(X,2)+Fd =F.
The required control z to be exerted in joint space is then given by (26). The states are selected as the Cartesian position of the end effector and its derivative.

where q is the vector of joint angles q, and q2 shown in Fig.2.

4=

(;)

x x2 = x
XI

(30) (3 1) (32) (33) (34)

Then the following state equations are obtained

PI = x 2 ,
i, = x = M - ' ( r , ) [ F ( t ) - h ( x , , x , ) - F $ j
Or

x, = -E-yx1)[F(x, ,x,)

+E*]+ M-'(x,)F(t)

These expressions are of the form given in equations (1) and (2). A quick inspection of equations (32) and (34) shows that for the robot dynamics

f (XI l

xz 1= xz

(3 5 )

In (39), f, and f , are Coulomb friction torques acting at the base and elbow joints respectively. In this equation, p1 = 3.1877, pz = 0.1168 andp, = 0.1630. These values are obtained by considering the various mass, length and inertia parameters of the arm and the direct drive motors given in Table 1 in standard [kg m sec] units. A detailed derivation of the dynamical model and the computation of the parameters p l , p z andp, is omitted here. A TMS320C3 1 floating point DSP based system is used to control the a m [22]. The user interface is on a 80486 PC r machine. C language servo routines are compiled in this environment and downloaded to the DSP. Sampling times in the range of 50-100 microseconds can be achieved for simple control methods. With this speed, complicated control algorithms can be developed. The NSK torque motors used on base and elbow joints provides position signals with a resolution of 153600 pulseslrev.

Link 2

Fig. 1 The direct drive arm.

Fig.2 Joint angles.

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TABLE 1
Motor 1 Rotor Inertia Arm 1 Inertia Motor 2 Rotor Inertia Motor 2 Stator Inertia Arm 2 Inertia I Motor 1 Mass Arm 1 Mass Motor 2 Mass I Arm2Mass

I 0.267 I 0.334 I 0.040

I I
0.063 73.0 9.78 3.0

I 0.0075
I
I
I I I
Axis2Friction Torque Limit 1 Toraue Limit 2

To obtain x, and x, fiom joint space variables the forward position kinematics equations x = L, c1 + L,c,, , (47) Y = 4 + L,% and the velocity kinematics equation

I 245.0
I
39.2

1.67

I
are used. In parallel with (37), the input gain matrix B, is obtained by (49) The design of the sliding surface is presented below. From equation (3), with the selection of state variables as in (46), we get
= V ( t )- oa

I 4.45

In the following, the chattering free sliding mode algorithm is applied to the control of the direct drive manipulator. The expression for the Jacobian of this manipulator is

B, =

a-'= J,M-'J,'

(v, 9 . U

(50)

The time dependent part of the slidingfunction is chosen as

where (xd y) is the desired position vector. Hence, with d' the definition in equation (4), it can be noted that (T is a function of position and velocity errors. With the definition of position error

(E:)

=(-Lly4212

4CI + 4 C I ,

L,c,,

O O O 0 0 0 1

1'

F,
F, n*
(43)

e=(;)

=k)-(;)
7

the following expression can be obtained for the sliding function 0 .

cr(x,t)=(zl] =G,e+G,e.

(53)

The matrices G, and G2 used in this design are

(44) where J R is defined as (45) and the suffix R stands for "restricted". In parallel with (30) and (31), and restricting the position and orientation vector X to positions only, the states are selected as

Gz=(0 1 ' (54) 0 c22 Where cll and cZ2are positive constants. Equating (53) to zero, wt the equation (54), it can be noted that the ih sliding surface in the four-dimensional state space can be identified by two independent sliding lines in two dimensional phase planes (Fig.3). The slopes of these two lines are -cI1and - cZ2 respectively. , From equations (49) and (54) we get that (G2B2)-' =M (55)

GI =(""

'),

")

Fig.3 Sliding surfaces.

192

Hence, the following control rule is obtained from equation (16) with a nominal inertia term

an

Here, Tis the sampling time, K is a diagonal gain matrix with positive entries used for tuning and D is chosen diagonal as well. (57) The diagonal entries of the nominal inertia matrix are calculated from equations (38) and (49) with the base joint at zero position and the elbow joint at 7r/2 rad. The offdiagonal entries are taken as zero in order not to introduce unnecessary coupling effects which could be signtficant in the case of modeling errors. The mapping in (44) is used to obtain the torques to be applied in joint space. Implementation results with this controller will be presented in the next section. IV. IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS The performance of the control algorithm presented in Section 2 is checked by experimental investigations on the direct drive two degrees of freedom SCARA type arm described in the previous section. The linear trajectory shown in Fig.4 in the workspace of the robot is wanted to be tracked by the end effector. Smooth velocity references shown in Fig.5 are applied. These curves are climbing and descending with " 1 - cos(wt) " type profiles. This makes the demanded accelerations continuous and initially zero. Therefore the control input, which is the force applied to the tip of the robot, will not exhibit sudden rises at time zero. All the discontinuities in the control input will be due to the properties of the control method used. Smooth references reinforce the test bed for the algorithm which claims to be chattering free. A constant velocity linear path, which is demanded between t=0.5 sec and t=1.5 sec, is commonly used in applications like arc welding or flame cutting. The demanded tip velocity of more than 40 cmhec is adequate for industrial applications. The sampling time T used is 1 ms. In discrete time the approximation below is used for the derivative of the sliding function. a(kT)- D((k - 1)T) &(kT) fi: (59) T The control parameters used in the implementation are c,, = 100, d,, = 1.5, k,, = 0.050, c = 80, d , = 15, k, = 0.065. , These parameters are tuned for a good tracking performance with little ringing in the control signal. Ringing in control signals is an indicator of ringing in

velocity curves, that is, chattering, which is aimed to be minimized. Better performance in tracking can be obtained with the cost of more ringing in control signals. A balance between chattering and performance is sought here with the set of parameters in (60). Fig.6 shows the force inputs with the control parameters listed. These are curves with acceptable ringing. The base and elbow joint torques realizing the force curves shown are given in Fig.7. Position errors in Fig.8 in x and y directions indicate that the performance of the controller is satisfactory for most trajectory control applications.
4w
300

.i. .. .. . ...... j.. . . . . i......;..__.. .;. .. . ;. . ..

: . !

__

: .
!

:..

-3M

-260

.rM

rco

260

ZOO

x-posmmRatwenmimi

Fig. 4 The reference trajectory.

Fig. 5 Velocity reference curves

Fig.6 Control forces.

05

15
Tme Iwcl

25

5 5 -

p B

1-10

-505
1

15

25

Fig.7 Control torques.

193

I
05
1 15

25

m [sac) e

Fig.8 Position errors in x and y directions.

V. CONCLUSIONS The implementation of a chattering free sliding mode controller for the trajectory control of robotic manipulators in task space with application results with a two axis experimental manipulator is presented in this paper. The method is computationally effective and easy to implement. Minimum amount of information about the controlled plant is required for the design of the controller. The resulting control signals are smooth, unlike the conventional sliding mode controllers. The possibility of exciting m o d e l e d dynamics is thus eliminated. The experimental results obtained on a considerably fast reference trajectory indicate that the algorithm is a good candidate for control applications ACKNOWLEDGMENT The third author would like to acknowledge the grant of m I T A K Turkey (EEEAG-39).

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VI. REFERENCES Whitney D.E., Resolved Motion Rate Control of Manipulators and Human Protheses, IEEE Trans. Man-Machine Systems MMS-10 (1969 a), 47-53. Paul R.P., Robot Manipulators, MIT Press, 1981 Taylor R.H., Planning and Execution of Straight Line Manipulator Trajectories, IBM Research and Development 23 (1979), 424-436. Mujtaba M. S., Discussion on Trajectory Calculation Methods, in Exploratory Study of Computer Integrated Assembly Systems, Binford T.O. et.al., Stanford University, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, A M 285.4, 1977. I Brady, Hollerbach, Johnson, Lozano-Perez, Mason, Robot Motion, MIT Press, 1983. Kahn M.E., Roth B., The Near Minimum-Time Control of Open-Loop Articulated Kinematic Chains, Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control, 93 (1971), 164-172 Slotine J.J., Shastry S.S., Tracking Control of Nonlinear Systems Using Sliding Surfaces, with Application to Robot Manipulators, Int. J. Contr.Vo1 38, NO2, pp 465-492, 1983.

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Sabanovic A., Jerernik K., Sabanovic N., Wada K., Chattering Free Sliding Modes, Proceedings of the Otomatik Kontrol Bilimsel Toplantisi (TOK94) pp. 253- 260, Istanbul, Turkey 1994. Sabanovic A, ,N. Sabanovic, K. Jezernik and K. Wada, Chattering Free Sliding Modes, The Third Workshop on Variable Structure Systems and Lyapunov Design VLST94 September 6-9, 1994, Napoly, Italy. Sabanovic A., K. Jezernik and 0. Kaynak, Chattering Free Sliding Modes in Robotic Manipulators Control, Mechatronics, Vol. 1, No. 1, Ankara 1994 Fengxi Z., Fisher D.G.,Continuous Sliding Mode Cont., Int. J. Cont., Vol55, NO2 p.313-327, 1992. Furuta K., Sliding Mode Control of a Discrete System, System and Control Letters, Vol 14, No 2, pp. 145-152, 1990 Drakunov S.V., Utkin V.I., On Discrete Time Sliding Modes, Proc. Nonlinear Control System Design Conf,, pp. 273-278, Capri, Italy, 1989. Wang W. J., Wu G.H., Variable Structure Control Design on Discrete-Time Systems-Another Viewpoint, Control Theory and Advanced Technology, Vol8, No 1, pp. 1-16, March, 1992 Izosimov D.B., Utkin V.I., On Equivalence of Systems with Large Coefficients and Systems With Discontinuous Control, Automatic and Remote Control, Vol 11, pp. 189-191, 1981. Erbatur K., Kaynak O., Sabanovic A., An Experimental Evaluation of Chattering Free Sliding Modes in Robotic Manipulators Control as Appliaed to the Control of a Direct Drive Robot, Proc. P E C 1995, Yokohoma, Japan. Erbatur K., Kaynak O., Sabanovic A.,A Novel Approach to Variable Structure Control as Applied to the Control of a Direct Drive Manipulator, Proc. European Control Conference 1995, Rome, Italy. Erbatur K., Kaynak O., Sabanovic A., Rudas I.,Fuzzy Adaptive Sliding Mode Control of a Direct Drive Robot, Proc. Int. Conf. Recent Advances in Mechatronics, ICRAM95, pp 714-719 Augustl4-16, 1995, Istanbul, Turkey. Erbatur K., Kaynak O., Sabanovic A., Basbug R., Ertugrul M., Fuzzy Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for Robotic Manipulators, Proc. Int. Conf. Aeronautics and Advanced Technologies, March 1995, I.T.U., Istanbul, Turkey. Spong M.W., Vidyasagar M., Robot Dynamics and Control, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1989 Koivo A., Fundamentals of Robotic Manipulators, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1990 Direct Drive Manipulator R&D Package User Guide, Integrated Motions Incorporated,704 Gillman Street, Berkeley California 94710

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