Control applications for performance of robot manipulators

Robot manipulators are widely used in the realization of various basic tasks (material handling, assembly, welding, machine loading, etc.) in industrial processes. These challenging, time-consuming, and periodical tasks performed by people are carried out quickly and efficiently thanks to robotic manipulators. Because such tasks often require high precision capability, the control of the robotic manipulators becomes a very important issue. In the control of the robot manipulators, it is aimed to follow the trajectory needed to reach the robot manipulator in the fastest and most reliable way from one point to another. In this thesis, trajectory tracking control of a two-link planar robot manipulator is performed by using sliding mode control and PID methods. A novel modelling technique and controller design for the proposed system is carried out by using MSC Adams and MATLAB software, respectively. A virtual prototype of the system has been built on MSC Adams software to obtain the numerical model. Also, the inverse kinematic equations of the manipulator to compare and verify the virtual prototype and designing of its controller are performed by using MATLAB/Simulink software. The system is simultaneously simulated in both MSC Adams and Matlab software which is called co-simulation in order to check the performances of the presented controllers. Additionally, the controller performances are relatively compared and shown with graphics and numerical results in terms of international error standards such as ITAE, IAE and ISE. According to the results, it is seen that the sliding mode control method can be used as an alternative to the PID method in control applications.