Optimal robust voltage control of electrically driven robot manipulators

This paper develops a novel robust optimal voltage control of electrically driven robot manipulators. The whole robotic system including the robot manipulator and motors is considered in the control problem. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to optimize the control design parameters, thus the performance of control system is highly improved. Beside this, we use Voltage Control Strategy (VCS) which is more robust, faster, less coupled, and less computational compared with the common strategy called as Torque Control Strategy (TCS). To state these advantages, it is reasoning that the TCS is dependent on the manipulator dynamics whereas the VCS can be free from it. The robust optimal voltage control is verified by convergence analysis. A comparative study between the VCS and the TCS confirms superiority of the VCS to the TCS. Simulation results present effectiveness of the proposed methods applied on a spherical robot manipulator driven by permanent magnet dc motors.