ADAPTIVE TRAJECTORY TRACKING FOR FLEXIBLE JOINT MANIPULATORS WITHOUT JOINT ACCELERATION MEASUREMENT

This paper presents an adaptive control scheme for flexible joint robot manipulators. Asymptotic stability is insured regardless of the joint flexibility value i.e. the results are not restricted to weak joint elasticity. Moreover the joint flexibility is not assumed to be a priori known. Joint position and velocity tracking errors are shown to converge to zero with all the signals in the system remaining bounded.