4th International Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE 2015)

IGEE, Boumerdes, December 13th -15th, 2015

Discrete First and Second Order Sliding Mode

Controllers for a Pneumatic Artificial Muscles
Robot Manipulator
Ratiba Fellag, Mustapha Hamerlain

Salah Laghrouche

Division Productique et Robotique

Centre de Dveloppement des Technologies Avances
Alger, Algrie
rfellag@cdta.dz; mhamerlain@cdta.dz

Laboratoire O.P.E.R.A
Universit de Technologie de Belfort-Montbliard
Belfort, France
salah.laghrouche@utbm.fr

Abstract Pneumatic artificial muscles are widely used in the

field of robotics in the development of robot manipulators to help
or assist human beings. This can be attributed to their inherent
compliance and low cost. However, their highly nonlinear
dynamics and their time varying properties, make it challenging
for classical controllers to accurately control such systems.
Sliding mode control is a powerful tool to overcome control
problems related to highly nonlinear systems that features
robustness against modeling uncertainties, parameter variations
and external disturbances. This paper investigates the use of
discrete time sliding mode control for position control and
trajectory tracking of a robot manipulator actuated by
pneumatic artificial muscles. First and second order discrete
sliding mode controllers are designed to make the joint angle
track a desired angular position or trajectory within a
guaranteed accuracy. A comparative study is presented along
with simulations results.
KeywordsDiscrete; first order controller; regulation; second
order controller; sliding control; trajectory tracking.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (PAM), also known as the

McKibben Artificial muscle, is a flexible rubber tube
surrounded by a braided shell that transmits effort. The first
PAM, attributed to J.L. McKibben [1], was used in the 50s in
an orthopedic tool for polio patients. Upon pressurization, an
axial contraction and a radial expansion are generated, thus
resulting in a specific axial force. This force decreases with
increasing contraction ratio to reach a minimum when it is
fully contracted [2]. PAMs possess many advantages, such as
high strength, high power to weight ratio, low cost, ease of
maintenance and compliance [3], [4]. Antagonistic action of a
pair of muscles generates a moment resulting in a rotational
motion of the associated joint. This basic principle may be
integrated into a kinematic chain of a robot [5]. For these
reasons, PAMs are commonly used in the development of
robot manipulators to help or assist human beings. However,
inherent nonlinearities, uncertainties on the parameters and
their time-varying properties make it delicate for classical

controllers to achieve accurate and precise control

performances.
Sliding mode control is a powerful robust control method,
having the ability to tackle parametric and modeling
uncertainties of nonlinear systems as well as external
disturbances. This robustness makes it an ideal candidate for
the control of robot manipulators actuated by pneumatic
artificial muscles. Much research regarding the control of
robot manipulators actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles
based on sliding mode control has been carried out in recent
years [6][11]. Yet, one of the problems associated with
sliding mode control is the chattering phenomenon. It is an
undesirable byproduct of the sliding mode control mainly due
to high frequency commutation across the sliding surface.
Among the approaches undertaken to attenuate the chattering
phenomenon is the use of Higher Order Sliding Mode
(HOSM) control. It allows, in addition to the good robustness
properties, the reduction of the chattering phenomenon as the
discontinuous term acts on the higher derivatives of the sliding
surface. Several works attempted to control robotic systems
actuated by PAMs using HOSM [2], [12][14].
Nowadays, the implementation in practice of control laws
is almost exclusively done using digital systems like
microprocessors and microcontrollers and this is mainly due to
the versatility, flexibility, availability and affordability of
digital electronics and the increasing use of computers and
digital systems. The information on the system, in this case, is
available at discrete instants and thus the control law is only
updated at these instants. It is then recommended to develop
control laws in discrete time. Moreover, the practical
implementation of control laws designed in continuous time
directly on digital systems implies not only degradation of
control performance but also instability in some cases [15].
Therefore, using the discrete-time system representation of the
system is more justifiable for controller design than the
continuous-time representation [16].
On the other hand, in the context of sliding mode control,
considerable efforts have been put in the development of
Discrete time Sliding Mode Control (DSMC) during the past
decades [15], [17][19]. In fact, DSMC has many advantages

2015 IEEE

over continuous time sliding mode control, some of them are:

low power consumption, low cost, high accuracy and ease of
making software and design changes [20], [21]. It should be
noted that, in the case of DSMC, the control input is only
computed at each sampling instant and kept constant over the
sampling period. In robotic control, DSMC has been used to
control a mobile robot in [22][24]. In [21], [25], [26], DSMC
controllers are elaborated to control robot manipulators. In
this paper, a discrete first order sliding mode controller for the
control of pneumatic artificial muscle robot manipulator using
the reaching law approach [27] is first designed, then, a
discrete second order sliding mode controller using equivalent
control approach for second order sliding mode control.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section II describes the discrete time approximated dynamic
model of the PAM. Section III presents the design of a
discrete time first order sliding mode controller (1-DSMC)
using reaching law approach. Section IV describes the discrete
time second order sliding mode controller (2-DSMC).
Simulation results are given in section V. After which a
conclusion is drawn in section VI.
II.

As mentioned earlier, the PAM robot manipulator is a

highly nonlinear system that is difficult to model accurately.
Therefore, in order to determine the joints dynamic model, an
identification process is achieved via MATLAB. This allows
the identification of the mean parameter values together with
their percentage of variation. The linear approximation of the
decoupled dynamic model for each joint is given in the
following form:
i

a i2

ai*1
a

*
i

h( , ) g ( )

(1)

Where ai*1 , ai*2 and

ai1
ai 2
bi

ai*1

ai1
ai 2
bi

ai1

*
i2

a
*
i

This study is carried out on a pneumatic artificial muscle

robot arm prototype available within our robotics laboratory
illustrated in Fig. 1. The robot arm consists of a base joint, a
shoulder joint and an elbow joint, all of which are revolute.
Each joint is driven by a pair of artificial antagonistic rubber
muscles, which have initially been inflated at the same
pressure Po. Both muscles then have approximately the same
contraction ratio. The rotation of a joint is obtained by
applying a pressure variation in the muscles. Variation of the
joint variable is obtained by modifying the pressurization P
[36].

(3)

ai 2
bi

bi* are the estimated parameters with

variation of intervals ai1 ,

ai 2 and

bi respectively.
T

Where J is an (nxn) inertia matrix, h( , ) is a (nx1) vector of

centrifugal, coriolis and friction terms, g( ) is a (nx1) vector
of gravity terms and is a (nx1) control torque vector.

(2)

The variations on the joints dynamic parameters a i 2 , ai1

and bi are given by:

PAM DISCRETE TIME DYNAMIC MODEL

J.

,1 i

bi ui

Where i are the angular displacements of each joint, a i 2 , ai1

and bi are the joints dynamic parameters, and i is the joint
number.

*
i2

The generalized dynamic model of the n-link robot

manipulator is expressed in the following Lagrange form (1) :

ai1

, the state
By choosing the state xi
xi1 , xi 2
i, i
space form representation for each joint is then given by:
xi = Ai xi + Bi ui
Where A i

2x2

2 x1

, Bi

matrices

(4)
representing

system

parameters for each joint. xi is a 2x1 state vector and ui is a

2x1 control input vector. i=1, 2 is the joint number.
The continuous time system model in (4) should be
transformed into a discrete time model, in order to design a
discrete control law. Hence, using the Zero Order Hold (ZOH)
discretization technique, the continuous time model is
discretized to get the discrete time approximated dynamic
model of the PAM which is expressed, for each joint as:
xi (k 1)

G i x i ( k ) H i ui ( k )

(5)

2x2
2 x1
, Hi
Where G i
represent discrete time state space
matrices, xi (k ) is a 2x1 state vector and ui (k ) is a 2x1
control input.
The matrices G i and H i in (5) are computed as:

Gi

e Ai
eA i d

Hi
0

Fig. 1. Pneumatic artificial muscle robot arm

Bi

(6)

Where

is the sampling period.

III.

ei (k )
With xid (k )
trajectory.

DISCRETE FIRST ORDER SLIDING MODE CONTROL

A. Classical discrete sliding mode existence condition

When working with variable structure controllers with
sliding mode, it is very important to investigate the properties
of the controller in discrete time. A number of research papers
in the literature have been devoted to the implementation of
continuous time sliding mode controller by computer or via
discretization which led to design of discrete time sliding
mode controllers. Milosavljevic [28] proposed a concept of
quasi-sliding mode and gave a necessary condition
( s(k 1) s(k )) s(k )

Sarpturk et al.[29], [30] gave a sufficient reaching

condition given in (9) and pointed out that the control law
must have upper and lower bounds depending on the distance
of the system state to the sliding surface.

Equation (9) may be further decomposed into two inequalities

[25], [29] as:
s(k 1) s(k ) sign( s(k ))

s(k 1) s(k ) sign( s(k ))

A suitable control law satisfying (10) will guarantee that

the phase trajectories are directed towards the switching
surface.
B. Discrete first order sliding mode control law (1-DSMC)
Both continuous and discrete time sliding mode controllers
drive the systems state onto a predefined hyperplane surface.
This can be accomplished either by choosing a suitable sliding
surface then establishing a control law and demonstrating that
it ensures stability of the sliding motion on the selected
surface, or by applying the reaching law approach. In the
latter, the required evolution of the sliding variable
represented by the time derivative of the sliding surface is first
proposed, then a control law which ensures that the variables
change as specified is determined [31]. This concept of
reaching law was initially proposed in continuous time by Gao
and Hung [32], then extended to the discrete time systems
[27], [33]. Since then, the reaching law approach to the control
of discrete time systems has been investigated by a lot of
researchers.
Let us consider the system given by (5), to design a
1-DSMC, we first choose a sliding function as:
si (k )
Where Ci

c,1

Ci ei (k )

(11)

, c being Hurwitz. i =1, 2 is the joint

number. ei (k ) is the tracking error given by:

Where q,

(1 q )si (k )

sign(si (k ))

are positive constants. 0

1,

(13)
is the

sampling period. sign(.) is the sign function satisfying :

sign(si (k ))

, si (k )

-1

, si (k )

(14)

The sliding variable evolution is also described by:

si (k 1)

Ci ei (k 1)

Ci (xi (k 1) xid ( k 1))

(15)

From (13) and (15) the obtained discrete time control law
controller is described by:
ui (k ) (Ci Hi ) 1 (Ci xid (k 1) Ci Gi xi (k ) (1 q ) si (k )
sign(si (k ))

With Ci H i
IV.

(10)

is the desired angular position or

id

si (k 1)

(9)

s (k )

(12)

According to Gao et al. [27] the DSMC exponential

reaching law can be written as:

(7)

This is similar to the continuous time reaching condition given

by:
s ( x) s ( x) 0
(8)

s(k 1)

id

xi (k ) xid (k )

(16)

0 ; i=1, 2.

DISCRETE SECOND ORDER SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER

In order to reduce chattering phenomenon that appears in

classical sliding mode controllers, several solutions were
proposed in the literature, among which we find the use of
HOSM controllers. Yet, there exist few contributions in the
development of HOSM in discrete time [34][37]. In this
section, a discrete second order sliding mode controller
(2-DSMC) for the PAM robot manipulator is developed using
the equivalent control approach for the second order sliding
mode control. In fact, this approach requires the use of the
systems model and allows for asymptotic convergence of the
sliding function to zero [34].
Considering the system defined by (5); in order to obtain a
discrete second order sliding mode controller, the sliding
function must satisfy the following:
s (k 1)
s (k )

(17)

A new system is then constructed, whose variables are

s (k 1) and s (k ) . In this case, the new sliding function is
defined for each joint as:
i

(k )

si (k 1)

si (k )

(18)

Where si (k) is the sliding function defined by (11). The value

of is chosen in the interval [0, 1], to ensure convergence of
i(k). i=1, 2.
si (k 1) C ( Axi (k ) Bui (k ) xid (k 1))

(19)

By analogy with the continuous time case, the equivalent

control, for the new system, is deduced from:
i

(k 1)

(k )

(20)

desired angular position and the sliding surfaces reaches zero

in finite time in both cases. However, we notice a faster
convergence using 2-DSMC controller with a reduced
chattering as compared to the 1-DSMC controller.

Using (18), (19) and (20), the equivalent control law is

given by:
U i eq(k )

(CB )

CAxi (k ) Cxi d (k 1)

si (k )

(21)

In order to ensure robustness of sliding mode controller, a

discontinuous term, which depends on the sign of the new
sliding variable, is added to the equivalent control law. It is
given by:
U i disc(k ) U i disc(k 1)

Msign( i (k ))

(22)

The discrete control law at each instant k, for each joint is

written in the following form:
ui (k ) U i eq (k ) U i disc(k )
V.

(23)

SIMULATION RESULTS

In this section, computer simulations will be performed on

the previously described DSMC controllers to evaluate control
performance of these controllers. Regulation mode is first
considered followed by trajectory tracking mode. A
comparison between first and second order DSMC controllers
is presented.

Fig. 2. Evolution of the angular position in regulation mode

To do this, we have used an approximated dynamic model

of the PAM robot manipulator prototype available in our
robotics laboratory. This model is obtained through an
identification process via MATLAB. The Joint dynamic
parameters, summarized in Table I, are identified using
various step input signals. Variations on the dynamic
parameters are estimated to be 20% uncertain.
TABLE I.

Joint 1
Joint 2

PAM ESIMATED DYNAMIC PARAMETERS

b
451.8012
437.8619

a2
6.949
3.5763

a1
21.0772
22.5885

Fig. 3. Control input signals in regulation mode

Simulation results will be presented only for one joint for

convenience since they are very similar for all axes. Sampling
time is 0.001 sec.
A. Regulation mode
In the regulation mode, 1-DSMC and 2-DSMC controllers
are used to make the PAM robot manipulator reach and
stabilize at a desired angular position, which we have chosen
equal to 10, starting from an initial position equal to zero.
The angular position, the control signals and the evolution of
the sliding surfaces for both 1-DSMC and 2-DSMC are
depicted in Figures 2, 3 and 4 respectively.
As we can see from the simulation figures depicted above,
both controllers achieve the assigned control task within a
guaranteed accuracy. The state variables evolve towards the

Fig. 4. Evolution of the sliding surfaces in regulation mode

B. Trajectory tracking
In order to examine the control performance of the
previously described DSMC controllers in trajectory tracking
control mode, we will make the joints of PAM robot
manipulator track a sinusoidal reference trajectory. The joints
angle is initially at 0.5 and the desired reference trajectory is
xd(k)=0.5*sin(10*pi*k* ). Figures 5, 6 and 7 illustrate the
angular position tracking, the control signals and the evolution
of the sliding surfaces respectively using both 1-DSMC and 2DSMC controllers.
These simulation figures shows that the tracking of the
desired reference trajectory is achieved successfully using
both controllers, with a faster convergence for the 2-DSMC
controller as compared to the 1-DSMC controller. As for the
control input signal, chattering is notably reduced in the
2-DSMC. Both sliding surfaces converge to zero in finite time.

Fig. 7. Evolution of the sliding surfaces in trajectory tracking mode

VI.

CONCLUSION

With the advent of digital electronics and the increasing use

of computers, the development of control methods in discrete
time is becoming a necessity. This paper investigates the use
of sliding mode control technique in discrete time. It is applied
to the control of a robotic system actuated by PAMs. Discrete
first and second order sliding mode controllers have been
designed and evaluated with a computer simulation in
regulation and trajectory tracking modes respectively.
Simulation results have shown that both controllers succeeded
in achieving the assigned control tasks within a good accuracy
However, the first order DSMC is affected by chattering,
which was reduced using the second order DSMC controller.
A faster convergence is also noticeable using the second order
DSMC controller as compared to the first order DSMC.

References

Fig. 5. Trajectory tracking using DSMC controllers

Fig. 6. Control signals in trajectory tracking using DSMC controllers

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