Adaptive super twisting observer-based prescribed time integral sliding mode tracking control of uncertain robotic manipulators

A novel integral sliding mode control (ISMC) strategy combined with an adaptive super twisting observer (ASTO) for an uncertain robotic manipulator tracking control system is presented in this article. The comprehensive uncertainties including both parameter perturbations and external disturbances are considered during the controller design. Firstly, a new nominal control law with prescribed time convergent property based on time varying scaling function is presented for the system without uncertainties. Then this nominal control law constitutes the prescribed time convergent sliding surface for ISMC. As the reaching phase is eliminated in ISMC, leading to the prescribed time stability of the whole control system without uncertainties. Secondly, take the system uncertainties (both the matched and unmatched uncertainties) into consideration, two ASTOs are designed for handling them. So, the lumped uncertainties of the robotic manipulator control system can be well estimated and compensated in finite time with the help of backstepping method. Besides, the finite time convergent adaptive switching gains of the ASTO make the system stable without knowing the bounds of the uncertainties exactly and suppress the chattering phenomenon of control input. Finally, the proposed control algorithm is validated by simulation and experiment on a robotic manipulator. Also, from a quantitative analysis, we testify the proposed control scheme outperforms the compared one in all of the discussed cases of simulation part.