The control of robot manipulators is intended to improve quality, productivity and functionality of these industrial systems. For this, it is necessary that the design of control methods take into account the nonlinear dynamics of these systems. Therefore this thesis focuses on nonlinear control of robotic systems, therefore the dynamic models of robots and the development of dynamic control is addressed, and its implementation in real time environments.
On the one hand, the dynamic model of a robotic manipulator is developed starting from the dynamics equations according to the Gibbs-Appell formalism. To do this, the robot is assumed to be constituted by rigid links and ideals pairs. This algorithm is formulated in a recursive way so the computational cost is linear, which enables real-time applications. It also takes into account that the dynamic resolution algorithms of the model need to know a reliable way the physical parameters of the robot, which must develop procedures to use a base set of identified parameters in the dynamic problem as constructing the equation of motion of the robot.
On the other hand, from the robot model, the dynamic control is addressed. The motion controllers developed are based on the robot model, ie those which take into account the description of nonlinear robotic system. Of all the possible controllers of this type than exist; we focus on two types of controllers, the inverse dynamic controllers and the controllers based on passivity. The first reach the aim trajectory tracking by using the feedback linearization of the nonlinear dynamics of the robot. The seconds changes the mechanical energy of the system in order to achieve the aim of control.
Finally, to validate and verify all the developments made in the thesis are working with a real robot, in this case with a robot PUMA 560. A major problem is that when trying to establish the control of an industrial robot, the robot is already used in this thesis as any other, is its own control unit, which is usually a totally closed system. To resolve such problems in the thesis has developed an open architecture for control based on an industrial PC.