An Adaptive Fuzzy Controller for Robot Manipulators: Theory and

Experimentation

MIGUEL A. LLAMA , RAFAEL KELLY , VICTOR SANTIBANEZ , and HUGO CENTENO

Instituto Tecnolgico de la Laguna, Apdo. Postal 49, Adm. 1

o
Torren Coahuila, 27001, MEXICO
o
Fax: +52 871 7 05 13 26
email: santibanez@ieee.org, vsantiba@itlalaguna.edu.mx,
mllama@itlalaguna.edu.mx, hugocnt@faraday.itlalaguna.edu.mx

Divisin de F
o
sica Aplicada, CICESE, Carretera TijuanaEnsenada km 107
Ensenada, B. C., 22800, MEXICO
email: rkelly@cicese.mx

Abstract: this paper addresses the tracking control of robot manipulators for the case when the
dynamics parameters are unknown. To this end,
we resort to the important property of fuzzy
systems as universal approximators. Via Lyapunov theory we prove, under the fact that SISO
functions approximation error can be achieved
with any prespecied degree of accuracy, that
the closedloop tracking errors are ultimately
bounded. We extend the single-input-singleoutput indirect adaptive fuzzy approach previously introduced in the literature to the more
general case of multi-input-multi-output fuzzy
control for nonlinear robot manipulators. The
exposed theory is validated experimentally on a
two degrees of freedom robot arm.
KeyWords: fuzzy control, adaptive control,
robot control, stability analysis, experimental
test.

Introduction

The fuzzy control of robot manipulators has been

widely discussed in recent years [1][6] and it has been
improved by incorporating other control techniques to
the classical ones such as adaptive fuzzy techniques,
and fuzzy neural networks schemes [7][19]. The highly
non linearity, the complexity in the dynamics modeling
of robotic systems and the presence of unknown and
variant parameters, turn dicult the task of designing
eective tracking controllers.

A control technique that has proved a very nice performance in the tracking control problem of robot manipulators is the computed torque control (inverse dynamics
approach) [20]; this control scheme linearizes the system and applies a linear PD control. However, the most
accuracy knowledge of the model of the plant is required
in order to operate properly. If the dynamics of the robot are well known, the computer torque control can
be implemented and even improved with the addition
of fuzzy systems that tune PD gains or compute the PD
control contribution as it is shown in [1], [3] and [7].
Nevertheless, not always the robot dynamics are well
known or they may change during a task execution.
Therefore adaptive fuzzy techniques have been introduced to the control of robot manipulators so as to estimate the parameters that describe the system dynamics and hereby compute the control law. Adaptive fuzzy
controls can be classied in: direct, when the fuzzy controller is a single fuzzy system constructed (initially)
from the control knowledge; and indirect, when the
fuzzy controller comprises a number of fuzzy systems
constructed (initially) from the plant knowledge [8]. A
very comprehensive study is shown in [9], where adaptive fuzzy control was both simulated and implemented
in simple non linear systems.
Some direct adaptive fuzzy approaches have been applied to the control of robot manipulators in [8],[10],
[11], and with cubic feedback in [12]. Indirect adaptive
fuzzy approaches are developed in [8], [13] and with genetic algorithms in [14]. However, none of these works
were experimentally validated.
The indirect adaptive fuzzy control proposed in this paper is characterized by a simplied design based on clas-

sical computed torque control, identifying the robot dynamics through adaptive fuzzy systems. The proposed
stability analysis proves and guarantees via Lyapunov
theory that position errors are uniformly bounded and
ultimately bounded.
The practical feasibility of the proposed controller is
shown in this paper by means of experiments on a two
degrees of freedom directdrive vertical robot arm. The
results show that the experimental response of the classical computed torque control is similar to that of the
adaptive fuzzy control, standing out the latter because
it does not require a knowledge of the robot dynamics. However, if the knowledge of the initial conditions
is available, this would help to have a faster position
tracking convergence.

2 Dynamics of robot
manipulators and control
problem formulation

gains, respectively. It is well known [20] that this

controller yields global exponential stability at least for
constant PD gains Kp and Kv . However, the latter fact
may limit seriously the control system performance in
many applications. A stable computed-torque control
via fuzzy self-tunning was introduced in [1] to improve
the performance of the response. Nevertheless, in both
cases the parameters of the robot model are rigorously
required and they are even more sensitive in the controller response than the PD gains, which it means that
those parameters must be well known for an optimum
operation of the closed loop system. If the behavior of
the plant is properly described, the classical computed
torque control (CTC) provides an appropriate tracking
control for robotic systems. Therefore, a complete parameter identier system based on fuzzy systems and
an adaption law will provide the functions that describe
the model of the robot regardless the unknown parameters.

3
The dynamics of a serial n-link robot can be written as
[20]:

M (q) + C(q, q)q + g(q) + f v (q) =
q

(2.1)

where q is the n 1 vector of joint displacements, q is

the n 1 vector of joint velocities, is the n 1 vector
of applied torque inputs, M (q) is the n n symmetric

positive denite manipulator inertia matrix, C(q, q)q
is the n 1 vector of centripetal and Coriolis torques,
g(q) is the n 1 vector of gravitational torques and

f v (q) stands for the n 1 vector of friction viscous

and Coulomb torques.
The motion control problem addressed in this paper
can be stated in the following terms. Assume that the
parameters of the robot dynamics are constant but un
known, and the joint position q and joint velocity q
are available for measurement. Let the n 1 desired
joint position vector q d be a twice dierentiable vector
function. The control problem is to nd a controller to
determine the actuator torques in such a way that
the joint positions q track a desired joint position trajectory q d as close as possible: limt q(t) = q d (t).
One conventional solution to this control problem for
the case of known parameters is provided by the computed torque control given by [20]

= M (q)[ d + Kv + Kp q ] + C(q, q)q + f v (q) + g(q)
q
q
where the joint position and velocity error vectors are

denoted respectively by the n 1 vectors q = q d q

and = q d q, with q d being the n 1 vector of deq

sired velocity, and Kp and Kv are symmetric positive
denite matrices proportional and derivative (PD)

Adaptive fuzzy control

From the dynamics of the robot we can write the joint

acceleration vector as follows:

q = M (q)1 [C(q, q)q + g(q) + f v (q)] + M (q)1

(3.1)
Now consider the general form for a single-input singleoutput non linear system
xn
y

= f (x) + g(x)u
= x

y, u IR,

(3.2)
x IRn

with g(x) = 0 so as to ( 3.2) be controllable.

According to the latter, ( 3.1) can be rewritten in a
multi-input multi-output scheme as

q = F (q, q) + G(q, q)

(3.3)

with F (q, q) = M (q)1 [C(q, q)q +g(q)+ f v (q)] and

G(q, q) = M (q)1 . In this case F (q, q) and G(q, q) are

n 1 and n n matrices respectively. As the functions

F (q, q) and G(q, q) will be estimated by a fuzzy system,

the computed torque control law takes the form

= G(q, q)1 [ d + Kv + Kp q F (q, q)]

q
q
(3.4)

f1 (q, q)

(q, q) =
.

Where F
and G(q, q) =

.
(q, q)

fn

g11 (q, q) g1n (q, q)

.
.
..
.
.

denote the estimates of

.
.
.

gn1 (q, q) gnn (q, q)

the respective function matrices with fi (q, q) and

gij (q, q) being their respective elements.

This controller is known as indirect adaptive fuzzy

control, because the control law is computed from the
estimates of the dynamic functions of the plant [8].

3.1

Fuzzy system

A fuzzy rule base system, for the case of two input

x1 , x2 , and one output y, consists of a set of fuzzy
IFTHEN rules comprising the following rules (named
R l1 l2 )
IF x1 is Al1 AN D x2 is Al2 T HEN y is B l1 l2 (3.5)
1
2
where for each input fuzzy set Ali and output fuzzy set
i
B l1 l2 exists an input membership function Ali (xi ) and
i
output membership function B l1 l2 (y), respectively,
1
1
with li = Ni2 , , 1, 0, 1, , Ni2 , and i = 1, 2
for the case of two inputs. N1 is the number of fuzzy
sets for input 1, and N2 is the number of fuzzy sets for
input 2.
In order to achieve the control law we recall the fuzzy
systems property as universal approximators. Fuzzy
systems can perform a non linear mapping with the
more accuracy as the design involves; this is discussed
in the Theorem 1 [8].
Theorem 1. Suppose that the input universe of discourse U is a compact set in IRn . Then, for any given
real continuous function g(x) on U and an arbitrary
> 0, there exists a fuzzy system f (x) in the form of

where || || = supxU |d(x)| is the innite norm, hi =

max1jNi 1 |cj+1 cj |, with ck as the center of the
i
i
i
membership function k = j or k = j + 1 (according to
the case) of the input i, where i=1,2. . . n, and n is the
number of inputs of the fuzzy system [8].
In the proposed control law, we can approach the unknown functions using fuzzy systems with singleton
fuzzier, Ni (odd) triangular membership functions for
each input, with i = 1, 2 (see Fig. 3.1), n = M adaptation parameters as singleton membership function for
the output (see Fig. 3.2), rule base dened by ( 3.5)
for two inputs, max-prod inference and center average
defuzzier as follows:

fj (x| f )

p1
l1 =1

pn
ln =1

p1
l1 =1

pn
ln =1

2
i=1

yf1 ln
l
2
i=1

Ali (xi )
i

Ali (xi )
i

for j = 1, . . . n
gjk (x|g )

q1
l1 =1

q1
l1 =1

(3.9)

qn
ln =1

yg1 ln
l

qn
ln =1

2
i=1
2
i=1

B li (xi )
i

B li (xi )
i

for j = 1, . . . n, k = 1, . . . n

(3.10)

Where yf1 ln are the free parameters in f

l
1...1
yf

.
i=1 pi x1 , that is
.
IR
with pi = l1 ln ,
f =
.
l1 ...ln
yf

f (x) =

N1
i1 =1
N1
i1 =1

N2
i2 =1

y i1 i2 Ai1 (x1 )Ai2 (x2 )

N2
i2 =1

Ai1 (x1 )Ai2 (x2 )

1

(3.6)

and yg1 ln are the free parameters in g IR i=1 ri x1 ,

l
1...1
yg

.
.
that is g =
with ri = l1 ln , so we can
.

yg1 ...ln
l
rewrite ( 3.9) and ( 3.10) as

such that
(3.7)

where y i1 i2 is the center of the (i1 , i2 )th output mem

bership function. It means that fuzzy systems are universal approximators; that is, they can approximate any
function on a compact set to arbitrary accuracy (denoted by ). The accuracy of the approach depends
upon the information of the system to approxime and
the complexity of the fuzzy systems. The approximation accuracy can be found as
||g(x) f (x)||

g(x)
x1
+...+

fj (x|f )

h1 +

g(x)
xn

g(x)
x2
hn

= T (x)
f

(3.11)

gjk (x|g )

sup |f (x) g(x)| <

xU

T (x)
g

(3.12)

with (x) a vector of dimensions

elements are
l1 ln (x) =

2
i=1
p1
l1 =1

h2
l1 ln (x) =

q1
l1 =1

pi 1, whose

pn
ln =1

2
i=1

n
i=1

Ali (xi )
2
i=1

(3.13)
Ali (xi )
i

n
i=1 qi

and (x) a vector of dimensions

ements are

(3.8)

1, whose el-

B li (xi )

qn
ln =1

2
i=1

(3.14)
B li (xi )
i

Fig. 3.1: Input membership functions

Fig. 3.3: Closed loop system

3.2

Stability analysis

The closed loop system (see Fig. 3.3) is obtained by

combining the robot dynamic model ( 3.3) with the
control law ( 3.4). Introducing the acceleration of the
desired trajectory ( d ) we get the acceleration error
q

Fig. 3.2: Output membership functions

= Kv Kp q
q
(q, q|f ) + G(q, q|g ) F (q, q) G(q, q)

+F
(3.17)
T

Then, introducing the robot variables, the fuzzy approximators can be written in a compact form as

F (q, q| f )

G(q, q|g )1

T (q, q)
f

(3.15)

T (q, q),
g

(3.16)

while (q, q) and (q, q) are n 1 adaptivepara0

f1 0

..
meters vectors and f = 0

.
0
0
0 f2

1
.

IRnpi npi , (q, q) = .

IRnpi ,
.

g11
.
g = .
.
gn1

1
.

(q, q) = .
.

..
.

g1n
.
.
.
gnn

f
Dene = 1 2 n
= [F (q, q| )
q| ) G(q, q)] as the minimum

F (q, q)] + [G(q, g

f
g
approximation error where F (q, q| ) and G(q, q| )

are the best (max-prod) approximators of F (q, q) and

G(q, q) respectively between all the fuzzy approximators of the form ( 3.9) y ( 3.10); then ( 3.17) can be
equivalently rewritten as
d
dt

:= e = Ae + B

(3.18)

where
A=

0
Kp

I
Kv

IR2n2n

(3.19)

IRnri nri ,

IRnri .

The designed fuzzy rule base is summarized in the look

up Table 3.1.

B=
0

F (q , q| f ) F (q, q| ) + [G(q, q | g ) G(q, q| )] +

IR2n

In order to carry out the stability analysis we propose

Table 3.1: Lookup table for the fuzzy rule base.

l1 = 2
NB
1
6
11
16
21

x2 \ x1
NB
NS
ZE
PS
PB

l2 = 2
l2 = 1
l2 = 0
l2 = 1
l2 = 2

l1 = 1
NS
2
7
12
17
22

the following Lyapunov function candidate:

V ( , , f , g )
qq

1
2

q
n

+
i=1
n

qT

l1 = 0
ZE
3
8
13
18
23

q q

V ( , , f , g ) =

1
[ f i ]T [ fi i ]
f
f
2i i
n

+
i=1 j=1

1
2

qT
n

+
i=1
n

1
[ gij ij ]T [ gij ij ]
g
g
2ij

1
i
n

+
i=1 j=1

with P = P T > 0 satisfying the Lyapunov equation

AT P P A = Q where Q = QT > 0. The rst term

of V ( , , f , g ) is a positive denite function with req q

spect to q and q because the positive deniteness of

P . The remain terms are also positive because they

are quadratic terms. So that, V ( , , f , g ) is globally

q q
positive-denite and radially unbounded function.
The time derivative of the Lyapunov function candidate
along of the trajectories from ( 3.18) is given by
q q

V ( , , f , g )

1
2
+

q
T

T
q
1
2
n

+
i=1
n

q
T

qT

+
i=1 j=1

P =

Kp + Kv
I

I
I

fi i
f
1
ij

( qi + qi )i

+
i=1

fi + i ( qi + qi )i (q, q)

gij ij
g

(3.22)

From ( 3.22) we can obtain the following update laws

for the parameters such that their respective terms
are cancelled

fi

g
ij

= i ( qi + qi ) i (q, q)

i ) ij (q, q)j

= ij ( qi + q

(3.23)
(3.24)

with i = 1, 2 . . . n and j = 1, 2 . . . n.
When accomplishing the previous update laws, the time
derivative of the Lyapunov function is reduced to
=

1
2

T
q

qT

( qi + qi )i

(3.25)

i=1

(3.20)
Inspired from [21] we take P = P

q q

V ( , , f , g )

[g ij ]T gij
g
ij ij

q
T

gij + ij ( qi + qi ) ij (q, q )j

[ f i ]T fi
f
i i
n

l1 = 2
PB
5
10
15
20
25

es min {Kv } > > 0. We can reduce ( 3.20) as

l1 = 1
PS
4
9
14
19
24

Let min {Q} be the smallest eigenvalue of Q, then from

( 3.25) we have

1
[min {Q} 1]
2

> 0 as
(3.21)

where the smallest eigenvalue of Kv (min {Kv }) satis-

1
2
1
2

qT

T
q

1
[min {Q} 1]
2

1
2

(3.26)

Since the fuzzy systems are universal approximators,

we can make the minimum approximation error arbitrarily small by using more rules to construct the fuzzy

system (
< ). Hence, by stability theory of

q
perturbed systems is possible to conclude that

q
f
are uniformly bounded, and
is uniand
g

q
form ultimately bounded.
Furthermore, integrating both sides of ( 3.26) and selecting [min {Q}] > 1 we have
t
0

reference of torque signal. The control algorithm is executed at 2.5 msec sampling period in a control board
(based on a DS1103 32/64bit oating point DSP board
running with a 400Mhz microprocessor) mounted on a
PC host computer.

2
V (0) +
min {Q} 1

t
0

2
2
V (0) +
min {Q} 1
min {Q} 1

if is square integrable, then

d
t
0

is also square

q
is also bounded;

q
then, from Barbalat Lemma we can conclude that

q
0
limt
=
IR2n .
0

q
So we have proven the following

Fig. 4.1: Robot arm

integrable and from ( 3.18),

Proposition 1. Consider the indirect adaptive fuzzy

control system given by ( 3.4), ( 3.15), ( 3.16), (
3.23) and ( 3.24) in closed loop with the robot dy
q
fi
are
namics ( 2.1). The states
and

gij

q
is uniformly ultimately

q
bounded. Furthermore, if is square integrable, then

q
0
limt
=
IR2n .
0

uniformly bounded, and

Experimental evaluation
4.1

The entries of the dynamics ( 2.1) of this two degrees

offreedom directdrive robotic arm C(q, q) has been

chosen using Christoel symbols, are given by [22]
and [23]
M (q) =

C(q , q) =

2.351 + 0.168 cos(q2 )

0.102 + 0.084 cos(q2 )
0.084 sin(q2 )q2

0.084 sin(q2 )q1

g(q) = 9.81

f v (q) =

0.102 + 0.084 cos(q2 )

0.102

0.084 sin(q2 )(q1 + q2 )

3.921 sin(q1 ) + 0.186 sin(q1 + q2 )

0.186 sin(q1 + q2 )

,
,

2.288q1 + 8.049 sgn(q1 )

0.186q2 + 1.734 sgn(q2 )

According to the actuators manufacturer, the direct

drive motors are able to supply torques within the following bounds

Experimental setup

In order to verify the eectiveness of the proposed adaptive fuzzy control, an extensive number of realtime
control experiments on a well identied directdrive robot arm were carried out. The experimental robot is a
two axis directdrive robot arm built at CICESE Research Center [22], [23]. The arm moves in the vertical
plane as shown in Figure 4.1. The actuators are direct
drive brushless motors operated in torque mode, so they
act as torque source and accept an analog voltage as a

|1 | 1max

150 [Nm],

2max

15 [Nm].

|2 |

4.2

Design parameters

The proposed controller have to estimate the F (q, q|f )

and G(q, q| g )1 functions in order to calculate the

control law. These functions are computed with six

4.3

dierent fuzzy systems

F (q, q| f )

f1 (q, q)

f2 (q, q)

g11 (q, q)1

g21 (q, q)1

G(q, q|g )1

T11 11 (q, q)
g

T21 21 (q, q)
g

T1 1 (q, q)
f

T2 2 (q, q)
f

g12 (q, q)1

g22 (q, q)1

T12 12 (q, q)
g

T22 22 (q, q)
g

From the knowledge of the structure of the 2 degrees

offreedom robot model we know that T12 12 (q, q) =

g
T

g21 21 (q, q), thus we have not six but ve dierent

fuzzy systems to be constructed. Also we can expect

T22 22 (q, q) to be a constant value. Every fuzzy sysg

tem receives two inputs whose universe of discourse
were partitioned in ve fuzzy sets: A2 = NB (Negaj
tive Big), A1 = NS (Negative Small), A0 = ZE (Zero),
j
j
A1 = PS (Positive Small), and A2 = PB (Positive Big),
j
j
with j = 1, 2. We selected triangular membership functions lj (xj ) for both inputs.
Aj

In all cases the input membership functions are symmetrical with respect to zero. This is shown in Figures
3.1 and 3.2, where pxj = {p2j , p1j , p0j , p1j , p2j } is
the set of the bounds of fuzzy set support (also called
fuzzy partition of the universe of discourse) which denes the input membership functions. The nal partitions of the universes of discourse were (in agreement
with the used notation pA = {p2 , p1 , p0 , p1 , p2 }):
For q:
pq1 = {60, 30, 0, 30, 60} [degrees]
pq2 = {60, 30, 0, 30, 60} [degrees].

For q:
pq1 = {180, 60, 0, 60, 180} [degrees/s]
pq2 = {180, 60, 0, 60, 180} [degrees/s].

The F (q, q|f ) fuzzy sets have q1 and q2 as inputs

whereas q2 and q2 are the inputs for the G(q, q|g )1

fuzzy sets.
It can be seen that, for any input, the sum of the membership values of two adjacent fuzzy sets is one, and the
membership value for any xj > p2j , xj < p2j is equal
to one. Also, as we can see from Figure 3.1, only four
rules are red in a given instant. Since both inputs have
5 fuzzy sets (N1 = 5 and N2 = 5), then the number of
rules is M = 25 and it involves n = 25 product terms;
every of these terms have its corresponding singleton
membership function whose center is given by an adaptation parameter . This fact converts the fuzzy system
into adaptive fuzzy system.

Desired task

The desired position trajectory, is given by

3

q d (t) =

b1 [1 ed1 t ] + c1 [1 ed1 t ] sin (1 t)

3
3
b2 [1 ed2 t ] + c2 [1 ed2 t ] sin (2 t)

[rad]
(4.1)

and was inspired from the structure of desired trajectories used by other authors for experimental evaluation
of control algorithms [24, 25].
In our application, the rst term of ( 4.1) was chosen
to exhibit a motion prole without abrupt changes in
position, velocity and acceleration but at the same time
to exploit the arm in its fastest motion without invading
the actuators saturating zone.
In expression ( 4.1), 1 and 2 represent the frequency
of desired trajectory for the shoulder and elbow joints
respectively. In our experimental tests, we use 1 = 7.5
rad/s and 2 = 1.75 rad/s.
To quantify the control performance, we use the root
mean square average of tracking error (based on the L2

norm of the tracking errors q ) given by

L2 [ ] =
q

1
T t0

q T q dt

(4.2)

t0

where T represents the total experimentation time and

t0 is the initial time of interest.
Besides the adaptive fuzzy control (AFC), a classical
computed torque control (CTC) was tested so as to
compare their closed loop response and make conclusions.

4.4

Experimental results

The experimental results are depicted in the Figs. 4.2

to 4.4. Fig. 4.2 shows position joints, position errors
and applied torques for the classical computed torque
control. For the desired trajectory the computed torque
control achieves a good tracking in both joints. It cannot reduce near to zero the position errors due to non
modeled friction in the joints. Also, notice that the applied torques are far of the manufacturer torque limits.
Now, Fig. 4.3 refers to the position joints, position errors and applied torques for the indirect adaptive fuzzy
control. The robot response are quite well for both
joints. We recall that this controller does not resort in
known parameters of the robot, but only in the estimation of descriptive functions of the model via adaptive
fuzzy systems. Comparing to the computed torque control, the main dierence lies in the position error of the
second joint, which is a little bigger with this proposed
controller.
Alternatively, Fig. 4.4 shows the estimated functions
from the adaptive fuzzy systems and the real value of

Position errors

Desired and actual positions

60

q1

Applied torques

qd1

60

40

20

20

0.5

0
0

1
0

10

t [seg]

20
0

10

t [seg]

10

10

10

10

10

t [seg]

1
q2

150

6
qd2

q2 [deg]

0.5

100
50
0

2 [Nm]

200

q2 [deg]

40

1 [Nm]

q1 [deg]

q1 [deg]

0.5

2
0
2

0.5

50

1
0

10

t [seg]

10

t [seg]

t [seg]

Fig. 4.2: Graphic results for the CTC

Position errors

Desired and actual positions

60

q1

Applied torques

qd1

60

20

20

0.5

0
0

1
0

10

t [seg]

10

2
q2

6
qd2

100
50
0

2
0
2

50
0

t [seg]

2 [Nm]

150

20
0

t [seg]

q2 [deg]

200

q2 [deg]

40

1 [Nm]

q1 [deg]

q1 [deg]

0.5
40

4
2

2
0

10

t [seg]

10

t [seg]

t [seg]

Fig. 4.3: Graphic results for the AFC

Real and approximated functions
50
60
1
seg2

f2 , f2

f1 , f1

1
seg2

f1

f1

50
0

f2

40
20
0

f2

20
0

10

t [seg]
0.2
g11
1

2.3

1
g11

2.2
2.1
0

t [seg]

10

10

0.1

0.1024

0.15

1
kgm2

2.4

g12
1

1
g12

1
g22 , g22
1

1
kgm2

2.5

1
g12 , g12
1

1
g11 , g11
1

1
kgm2

2.6

t [seg]

0.05
0
0

10

0.1022
0.102
0.1018

g22
1
1
g22

0.1016
0.1014
0

t [seg]

Fig. 4.4: Real and estimated functions

t [seg]

0.5

Table 5.1: Performance indexes.

L2 [ ]
q
0.3421
0.4272

those functions computed through the known model of

the robot. It is not guaranteed that the estimators follows the real values of the functions, but it does not
mean that the control objective is not accomplished.

0.3421

0.3
0.2
0.1
0

CTC

AFC

Fig. 5.1: L2 norm for both control techniques

Concluding remarks of
experiments

According to the desired trajectory which was used to

test the controllers, the classical computed torque control and the indirect adaptive fuzzy control have similar
responses, but the indirect adaptive fuzzy control has
the advantage that does not require the model of the
robot to compute the control law. Performance indexes
are the L2 norm of the tracking position errors, which
are shown in Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.1. Fig. 5.2 shows the
L2 norm of the tracking position errors for each joint.

Conclusions

In this paper an indirect adaptive fuzzy control for robot manipulators was proposed. To this end we extended the single input single output indirect adaptive fuzzy approach to the general case of multiinput
multioutput systems. Via Lyapunov theory and stability theory of perturbed systems, we proved that the
states of the closed loop system, that is, the velocity and
position errors and the parameters of the fuzzy system
are bounded and furthermore the velocity and position
errors are uniformly and ultimately bounded.
The controller was experimentally validated on a 2 dof
robot manipulator achieving excellent results. A performance comparison was made between the proposed
adaptive fuzzy control and the classic computed torque
control, resulting with a similar response but our proposed adaptive fuzzy control has the advantage of not
requiring the knowledge of any parameter of the robot
model in contrast with the computed torque control
which require the overall knowledge of the dynamics
robot.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Work partially supported by DGEST and CONACyT
(grant 45826).
REFERENCES

0.8
Norm or errors [deg]

4.5

Norm or errors [deg]

Controller
CTC
AFC

0.4272
0.4

joint 1
joint 2

0.6497

0.6
0.4361

0.4
0.2480

0.2
0

CTC

0.2046

AFC

Fig. 5.2: L2 norm of each joint for both control techniques

[1] M. A. Llama, R. Kelly, and V. Santibaez, Stan

ble computedtorque control of robot manipulators via fuzzy selftuning, IEEE Transactions
on Systems, Man, and CyberneticsPart B Vol. 30,
pp. 143150, Feb. 2000.
[2] W. Chen, J. K. Mills, J. Chu and D. Sun, A fuzzy
compensator for uncertainty of industrial robots,
Proc. of 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2001, pp. 2968
2973, 2001.
[3] M. A. Llama, R. Kelly, and V. Santibaez, A Stan
ble Motion Control System for Manipulators via
Fuzzy SelfTuning,, Fuzzy Sets and Systems Vol.
124, No. 2, pp. 133154, Dec. 2001.
[4] V. Santibaez, R. Kelly, and M. A. Llama, Global
n
1
Asymptotic stability of a tracking sectorial fuzzy1
controller for robots manipulators, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and CyberneticsPart B
Vol. 34, pp. 710718, Feb. 2004.
1

[5] Y. L. Sun and M. J. Er, Hybrid fuzzy control of

robotics systems, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy
Systems Vol. 12, No. 6, pp. 755765, Dec. 2004.
[6] V. Santibaez, R. Kelly, and M. A. Llama, A
n
Novel Global Asymptotic Stable Set-Point Fuzzy
Controller with Bounded Torques for Robot Manipulators, IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems
Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 362372, Jun. 2005.
[7] S.Wen; H. Yang, Fuzzy adaptive PD control for
robot and experiment study, Machine Learning
and Cybernetics. Proceedings of 2005 International
Conference Vol. 2, pp 834839, Aug 2005.
[8] L. X. Wang, A Course in Fuzzy Systems and Control, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River N.J.,
1997
[9] R. Ordonez, J. Zumberge, J. Spooner, and K.
Passino, Adaptive Fuzzy Control: Experiments
and Comparative Analyses, IEEE Transactions
on Fuzzy Systems Vol. 5, pp 167188, May 1997.
[10] H. Dac Loc, T. Thu Ha and N Cao., An adaptive
fuzzy logic controller for robot-manipulator, International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
Vol. 1, pp 115117, 2004.
[11] Y. Cho, K. Seo, and H. Lee, A Direct Adaptive
Fuzzy Control of Nonlinear Systems with Application to Robot Manipulator Tracking Control,
International Journal of Control, Automation, and
Systems Vol. 5, pp 630642, Dec 2007.
[12] M. Liu Stability Analysis of Decentralized Adaptive Fuzzy Logic Control for Robot Arm Tracking,
Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2000, Vol. 1, pp 883888, Dec
2000.
[13] S.S. Neo, M.J Er, Adaptive fuzzy control of robot manipulators, Control Applications, Proceedings of the 4th IEEE Conference, pp. 724729,
Sep.1995.
[14] Y. Jin, Decentralized Adaptive Fuzzy Control of
Robot Manipulators, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and CyberneticsPart B Vol. 1, pp 47
57, Feb 1998.
[15] W. Sun and Y. Wang, An Adaptive Fuzzy Control for Robotic Manipulators, Proc. of 2004
8th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, pp. 19521956. Kunming China, Dec. 2004.

[16] E. Kim, Output Feedback Tracking Control of

Robot Manipulators with Model Uncertainty via
Adaptive Fuzzy Logic, IEEE Transactions on
Fuzzy Systems Vol. 12, No. 3, pp 368378, Jun
2004.
[17] Y. Touati and E. H. Rebaa, Fuzzy Adaptive Controller Design Methodology for Robotics Systems,
Proc. of The 14th IEEE International Conference
on Fuzzy Systems, 2005. FUZZ 05, pp. 921926.
Reno, NV, May. 2005.
[18] H. Yousef, E. El-Madbouly, D. Eteim and M.
Hamdy, Adaptive fuzzy semi-decentralized control for a class of large-scale nonlinear systems based on input-output linearization concept,
Proc. of International Conference on Computer
Engineering and Systems, 2007. ICCES 07, pp.
2732. Cairo Egypt, Nov. 2007.
[19] R.J. Wai and Z.W. Yang, Adaptive Fuzzy Neural
Network Control Design via a TS Fuzzy Model for
a Robot Manipulator Including Actuator Dynamics, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and
CyberneticsPart B Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 13261346,
Oct. 2008.
[20] M. Spong, S. Hutchinson and M. Vidyasagar, Robot Modeling and Control, New York: John Wiley
and Sons, 2006.
[21] R. Kelly, V. Santibanez and A Loria, Control
of Robot Manipulators in Joint Space, SpringerVerlag, 2005.
[22] F. Reyes, and R. Kelly, Experimental evaluation
of identication schemes on a directdrive robot,
Robotica, Vol. 15, pp. 563571, 1997.
[23] F. Reyes, and R. Kelly, Experimental evaluation
of modelbased controllers on a directdrive robot
arm, Mechatronics, Vol. 11, pp. 267282, 2001.
[24] D. M. Dawson, J. J. Carroll and M. Schneider,
Integrator backstepping control of a brush DC
motor turning a robotic load, IEEE Transactions
on Control System Technology, Vol. 2, pp. 233244,
Sept. 1994.
[25] M. S. De Queiroz, D. Dawson and T. Burg, Reexamination of the DCAL controller for rigid link
robots, Robotica, Vol. 14, pp. 4149, 1996.