Abstract
This paper discusses the tracking trajectory in the workspace of rigid manipulators using distributed adaptive control strategy. This control strategy consists of two steps; first, the classical MIMO dynamical system is decomposed into a set of nonlinear interconnected subsystems. Each subsystem has one joint. Second, the distributed adaptive control strategy is introduced. This control strategy consists of controlling the last subsystem while assuming that the remaining subsystems are stable. Then, going backward to the second last subsystem, the same strategy is applied and so on until the first one. The system parameters are assumed to be unknown. An adaptive control is used to estimate these parameters. Indeed, the unknown parameters existing in the equation of motion of the last subsystem are first estimated and the control law is developed based on these estimated parameters. Then, going backward to the before last joint, the control law is developed using its own estimated parameters and the ones already estimated in the upper level subsystem. Asymptotical stability of the error dynamics is proved using Lyapunov approach. The developed algorithm is experimented on a 4 DOF hyper redundant articulated nimble adaptable trunk robot and compared with the classical computed torque approach. Good tracking in the workspace and joint space is obtained and effectiveness of the results is shown.