Comparative Study of Optimal Nonlinear Control Schemes for Hanging Mass Actuated by Uncertain Pneumatic Muscle

Abstract

The systems actuated by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs) are characterized by high nonlinearity and time-varying of their coefficients. Therefore, nonlinear and robust controllers are required to cope with these challenging control problems. This work presents the development of new control design for trajectory tracking of PAM-actuated manipulator based on Sliding Mode Control (SMC), Backstepping Sliding Mode Control (BSMC). The control laws of controlled PAM hanging mass based on SMC and BSMC have been developed according to Lyapunov stability analysis. Additionally, the PSO technique is used to tune the design parameters of proposed controllers for further enhancement of controlled PAM system performance. A comparison study has been conducted among the proposed controllers via computer simulation using MATLAB/Simulink programming software.