Consensus Control for Networked Manipulators With Switched Parameters and Topologies

To solve abruptly occurrence of parameters jumping and directed communication topologies changing in the control process of networked manipulators, in this paper, distributed switched consensus control algorithms are formulated for a group of robot manipulators in realizing cooperative consensus performance. In fact, networked Lagrange systems are modeled as switched systems regarding the different parameters and topologies. Namely, the dynamic models switch when the system parameters or the topology structures change. The consensus control strategy is constructed by resorting to (improved) average dwell time (ADT) method and sliding-mode control technique, and a unified analysis methodology is developed to perform the convergence analysis for the closed-loop system by Lyapunov stable theory. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a systematically adaptive consensus algorithm by simultaneously considering shifting parameters and switching communication network (as two unavoidable key factors) in the process of communication interaction among robots. A distinctive feature of the developed consensus protocol is to introduce the directed network topology characterizing the local communication interaction among robots, which is especially suitable for representing the the structures and features of the realistic cooperative multi-robotic systems. Accordingly, the developed consensus tracking strategy for manipulators possess prominent advantages including robustness,stability and effectiveness over the existing concentrated on single robot counterparts. Finally, numerical simulations of two-link manipulators are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the obtained control algorithm.

Automated summary

In this paper, a distributed switched consensus control algorithm is proposed to address the issues in the control process of networked manipulators. The algorithm constructs a consensus control strategy by considering parameter changes and communication network switching, and uses a unified analysis methodology for convergence analysis.