Extended state observer based dynamic iterative learning for trajectory tracking control of a six-degrees-of-freedom manipulator

With the development of industrial automation comes an ever, broadening number of application scenarios for manipulators along with increasing demands for their precise control. However, manipulator trajectory tracking control schemes often exhibit problems such as those related to high levels of coupling, complex calculations, and in various difficulties in application for industrial environments. For the problems of low accuracy in control and poor robustness of multiple-jointed robotic trajectory tracking, iterative learning control (ILC) with model compensation (MC) based on extended state observer (ESO) has been proposed for the trajectory tracking control of six-degrees-of-freedom (six-DOF) manipulators. The scheme has excellent features to overcome uncertainties in repetitive tasks, including unknown bounded perturbations that are external to the model or dynamic perturbations that are internal to the model. The proposed control strategy combines ESO, iterative learning, and MC, for precise control of trajectory tracking. Here, ESO is used to estimate disturbances, iterative learning allows fast and accurate control in repeated tasks, and the model-compensated control algorithm alleviates the necessary for many inverse operations. The convergence of our proposed control scheme is proved through Lyapunov function and time-varying approximation theory. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the proposed scheme. •An improved iterative learning control scheme based on extended state observer is proposed.•The convergence of proposed control scheme is proved.•The internal uncertainty and coupling of six degree-of-freedom robotic arm are well offset.•The proposed control scheme can well overcome matching and mismatching disturbances.