Robust Visual-Servo Control of Robot Manipulators in the Presence of Uncertainty

This paper considers the problem of position control of planar robot manipulators via visual servoing in the presence of uncertainty associated with the robot mechanical dynamics and the camera system for both fixed-camera and camera-in-hand configurations. Specifically, we first design a robust controller that compensates for uncertainty throughout the whole robot-camera system and ensures global uniformly ultimately bounded position tracking for the fixed-camera configuration. Under the same class of uncertainty, we then develop a setpoint controller for the camera-in-hand configuration that achieves global uniformly ultimately bounded regulation. Experimental results illustrating the performance of both controllers are also included. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.