Optimal Sliding Mode Control of Single Arm PAM-Actuated Manipulator

The manipulators actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs) are characterized by high nonlinearity and time varying of their coefficients. Therefore, nonlinear and robust controllers are required to cope with these challenging control problems. This work presents the development of control design for trajectory tracking of PAM-actuated manipulator based on Sliding Mode Control (SMC). The PSO technique is used to tune the design parameters of proposed controller for further enhancement of controlled PAM system performance. A comparison study has been conducted between the optimal and non-optimal SMC controllers via computer simulation using MATLAB programming software.