Sequential Observation and Control of Robotic Systems Subjected to Measurement Delay and Disturbance

An approach for motion control and observation of robotic manipulators is presented in this article. It links the design of a joint acceleration controller to the design of a variable structure observer including Luenberger-like observation term. Both the joint acceleration controller and the observer that are introduced in this paper are very likely to use either large or moderate or small gains. Thus the time delay issue of the output measurements is highly taken into consideration in the design of the intended observers. The observer design is therefore based on two different generalized forms of nonlinear systems with/without undelayed outputs. A study to investigate the effects of the gains of the joint acceleration controller on the performance capabilities of the observer is introduced. Also, the effects of the time delay factor on the operation of both the controller and the observer and their own interaction are studied. Then a chain observer design is presented for circumventing the time delay effects. The time delay constant is found to be of vital importance to the robot performance capabilities. Moreover, the results show that the gains of the joint acceleration controller are of significant influence on the operation of the proposed observers