On passivity-based control of a class of electrically driven robots

In this paper, a class of robot manipulators actuated by direct current (DC) motors and servo amplifiers in current mode is studied. For those robots, it is assumed that the control inputs to the manipulator are the servo amplifier input voltages. A model-based trajectory tracking controller is developed, which renders the closed-loop system to be passive from an auxiliary control input to a filtered error signal. Experimental results support theoretical results.