A nonlinear disturbance observer for robotic manipulators

A new nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) for robotic manipulators is derived in this paper. The global exponential stability of the proposed disturbance observer (DO) is guaranteed by selecting design parameters, which depend on the maximum velocity and physical parameters of robotic manipulators. This new observer overcomes the disadvantages of existing DO's, which are designed or analyzed by linear system techniques. It can be applied in robotic manipulators for various purposes such as friction compensation, independent joint control, sensorless torque control, and fault diagnosis. The performance of the proposed observer is demonstrated by the friction estimation and compensation for a two-link robotic manipulator. Both simulation and experimental results show the NDO works well.