Robot axis dynamics control using a virtual robotics environment

Robots are complex electromechanical systems where several electric drives are employed to control the movement of articulated structures. In industrial environments they must perform tasks with rapidity and accuracy in order to produce goods and services with minimal production time. These procedures require the use of flexible robots which can act in a large workspace, thus subject to important parameters variations, with efficient control algorithms. The progress of technology and the close relationships among several sciences, such as micro-electronic, software engineering and communications, open space for a great development in the robotics area and automation process. Generalized predictive control (GPC) has shown to be an effective strategy in many fields of applications, with good time-domain and frequency properties (small overshoot, improved tracking accuracy and disturbance rejection ability, good stability and robustness margins), able to cope with important parameters variations. This paper presents an application of GPC to a robot trajectory control with a comparison between classical PID and GPC controllers within an original virtual environment