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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TIE.2016.2613990, IEEE
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Approximation-Free Tracking Error
Constraint Control for Lagrangian Systems
Seong Ik Han, Member, IEEE, and Jang Myung Lee, Senior Member, IEEE
 the controller. After the state space approach appeared in the
Abstract—This paper proposes an approximation-free
adaptive tracking error constraint control scheme for
unknown Lagrangian systems. A transformed filtered
tracking error surface has been constructed to guarantee
the transient and steady-state performance of the position
control of the Lagrangian systems combined with adaptive
estimation laws for unknown upper bounds of the
parameters of the Lagrangian systems. To obtain fast error
convergence, a finite-time control has been adopted in the
proposed controller. In addition, the proposed controller is
effective for the constrained positioning of Lagrangian
mechanical systems with unknown deadzone input
nonlinearity, without requiring nonlinear approximations
or identification processes for unknown parameters of
dynamics and deadzone. The effectiveness of the
proposed constraint control scheme has been proven by
simulation and experimental evaluations for an XY table
and an articulated manipulator system in the presence of
unknown deadzone.
Index Terms—Lagrangian system, constrained control,
approximation-free estimation, finite-time control,
deadzone
I. INTRODUCTION
I NDUSTRIAL mechanical systems including mobile and
industrial robotic systems and several servo systems
equipped with electric, hydraulic, and pneumatic energy
conversion actuators are typically described by the Lagrangian
dynamic equations of motion. Over the last few decades, for
non-model-based control, many proportional-derivative (PD)
and proportional -integral- derivative (PID) tuning control
techniques have been applied to Lagrangian systems, because
these control methods are easy to design and convenient to
implement in real servo systems. However, repeated tuning
processes are required to obtain satisfactory control
performance, although there are empirical gain-tuning rules of
Manuscript received February, 10, 2015; revised July 14, 2015,
February, 4, 2016, and June 24, 2016; accepted August 22, 2016. This
work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea
(NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (MSIP)
(NRF-2015R1A2A 2A01004457).
Seong Ik Han is with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
Pusan National University, Busan, 46241 Republic of Korea
(e-mail:snikhan @gmail.com).
Jang Myung Lee is with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
Pusan National University, Busan, 46241 Republic of Korea (phone:
+82-51 -510-2378; fax:82-51-514-1693; e-mail:jmlee@pusan.ac.kr).
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1960s, model-based linear control techniques such as linear
quadratic (LQ), linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG), linear
quadratic Gaussian/loop transfer recovery(LQG/LTR), and
H that linearize nonlinear Lagrangian systems have been
developed. However, because these control schemes are
designed based on the plant model, an additional robust control
algorithm is required to compensate for unmodeled or varying
plant dynamic characteristics. Moreover, tedious modeling and
linearization of complex nonlinear systems is performed. To
alleviate these problems, fuzzy logic systems (FLSs) and neural
networks (NNs) have been developed to approximate unknown
complex nonlinear dynamics or unknown parameters. There
have been many control applications to servo systems using
FLS [1-3] and NN [4-6] techniques. However, in servo
mechanical systems, the use of FLS-and NN-based
approximation techniques makes the controller structure more
complex and leads to large computation times as the order of
the system and the number of fuzzy logic units, neurons, and
layers are high. To solve these problems, robust adaptive
control methods for robotic systems were developed by Wang
et al. [7], Li et al. [8],[9], and Andaluz et al.[10]. Using
adaptive laws for the unknown upper bounds of Lagrangian
dynamic parameters, the estimates of unknown parameters are
obtained so as to provide satisfactory control performance
without introducing FLS or NN approximations. However,
only simulated investigations have been used to prove validity
of the proposed control strategy. Moreover, the constraint
control methods for tracking error are not considered.
These conventional adaptive controls depend on the design
parameters and certain unknown terms for minimizing the
norm of the tracking error, and the transient and residual
tracking errors. The size of a residual error can be regulated so
that these controllers are designed to guarantee the
convergence of a tracking error to a residual set. On the other
hand, repeated trial-and-error tests are required to ensure the
prediction of a precise upper bound for the required residual set
and satisfy the transient and steady-state tracking performances
by selecting the specific controller parameters. Therefore, in
these control structures, it is difficult to develop a systematic
scheme that guarantees a specified control performance.
Recently, the prescribed performance constraint control
methods have been actively studied by Rovithakis et al., [11],
[12], Wang et al.,[13], Na et al., [14], and Han et. al. [15].
These techniques provide a prescribed performance function
and transformation function that transform the tracking error of
an original nonlinear system into a new error in the transformed
system. The transformed error is used as a variable in the design
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of an adaptive controller. The tracking error remains within the
prescribed error bound to ensure the stability of the transformed
error system. However, in the constraint method given in
[11-14], there is a problem, in that the inverse of the
transformation function to be used to design the controller
might violate the prescribed performance under some specific
constraint condition [15]. On the other hand,
Theodorakopoulos et al. [16],[17] verified recently that the
prescribed performance control can compensate for the
deadzone input nonlinear effect, which is obstacle for improved
control performance in many Lagranian systems, without using
conventional adaptive or neural/fuzzy based approximation
techniques.
Based on the aforementioned directions, in this paper, a new
filtered tracking error surface is proposed to guarantee the
prescribed tracking error constraint boundary and deadzone
compensation for the Lagrangian systems; it is combined with
robust adaptive control without using a FLS or NN
approximation for unknown dynamic parameters. Moreover,
deadzone effect is compensated for without requiring any
additional controller or approximation technique like [16],[17].
Next, finite-time control used in the terminal sliding mode
control is combined with robust adaptive control with unknown
parameter estimation of the Lagrangian system in order to
obtain a fast- converging response. Therefore, the proposed
control assures the predefined position tracking error
constraints for the Lagrangian systems while not depending on
complex approximation methods and not requiring extra
deadzone compensators [18-20]. As application examples, the
control systems of an XY table and an articulated manipulator
system are utilized to show the effectiveness of the proposed
control scheme.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
A. Dynamics of Lagrangian Systems
The dynamic equation of the Lagrangian systems with n
degrees-of-freedom is as follows:
M (q )q  C (q, q ) q  G (q )  Fu  u
n1
where q, q , q  R denote the generalized position, and the
velocity and acceleration vectors, respectively; a positive
definite symmetric matrix, M (q )  R nn , is the moment of
inertia matrix; C (q, q )  R nn is the centripetal Coriolis
matrix; G (q )  R n1 is the gravity vector; Fu  R n1 is the
uncertainty vector including the external disturbance and the
friction; and u  R n1 is the control input vector.
Property 1: M (q) and G (q) are uniformly bounded and
uniformly continuous for a uniformly bounded and uniformly
continuous generalized position vector q .
Property 2: C (q, q ) is uniformly bounded and uniformly
continuous for a uniformly bounded and uniformly continuous
generalized velocity vector q .
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Property 3: qT [ M (q )  2C (q, q )]q  0 is always true, based on
the skew-symmetric property between M ( q ) and C (q, q ) .
Assumption 1 [7]: There exist some unknown finite positive
constants, i  0 , 1  i  4 , and finite nonnegative constants,
5  0, such that q  R n , q  R n , M (q)  1 , C(q, q )  2
 3 q , G ( q )   4 , and supt  0 Fu  5 .
The control objectives of the proposed controller are to design a
control input law such that
1. The output position vector tracks the desired trajectory
qd (t )  R n and all involved signals in the closed-loop
system remain bounded.
2. The tracking errors, e(t )  q (t )  qd (t ) , always remain
within the prescribed constraint boundaries.
B. Constrained Tracking Error Boundary Function
A constrained positive boundary function to prescribe the
tracking performance is selected as follows because this type
function can regulate conveniently the tracking performances
such as rising-time, overshoot, and steady-state offset in time-
domain:
 (t )  ( 0   ss )exp(at )   ss , (2)
where 0   ss  0 and  ss  lim  (t ) are design constants
t 
and e(0)  0 should be satisfied to guarantee the prescribed
constraint conditions. 0 and a  0 determine the rising time
and overshoot performance of the tracking output.  ss
determines the steady-state tracking performance of the given
control system. Each design parameter must be selected
appropriately according to the control system conditions and
capacity of the actuators. Extreme parameter values may cause
high gain control and stability problem. The prescribed bounds
are guaranteed by the following constraint conditions
  (t )  e(t )   (t ) if e(0)  0 , (3)
(1) or
  (t )  e(t )   (t ) if e(0)  0 , (4)
where   diag ( 1 ,...,  n ) and 0  i  1 is a scale factor. Next,
a transformed constraint error, i for i  1,..., n , is defined as
follows:
i (t ) 
ei (t )
, (5)
i (t )
i  hi p  li (1  p) , (6)
where p  1 if ei (t )  0 , and p  0 if ei (t )  0 . The parameters
hi and li are defined as follows:
hi  i (t )
 , if ei (0)  0 , (7)
li   i i (t )
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hi  i i (t ) 5
1
 , if ei (0)  0 . (8)  r T ( mT  m  u )   k ˆ k . (15)
 li   i (t ) k 1  k

In (3) and (4),  determines the symmetry or not of the The control input and adaptive law can be chosen as follows:
constraint condition. In this paper, we assume that   I to 5
r ˆ k k2
u   Kr     sign(r ) , (16)
consider only the symmetric constraint condition. k 1 r  k   k
Lemma1: The following condition regarding the transformed 2
error defined in (2) holds:  k r  k2
ˆ k    k ˆ k , k  1,...,5 , (17)
r k   k
0  i  1 , t  0, i  1,..., n (9)
where K  diag (k1 ,..., kn )  0  R nn , k  0 and  k  0 are
if and only if 0i ,  ssi , and ai are selected such that they satisfy
constants,   [   q  1 1]T , and   diag ( 1 ,...,
(3) and (4).
Proof: See [15].  n )  0 is a constant matrix. (15) can be written as

III. DEIGN OF NON-MODEL-BASED CONTROLLER 5

r ˆ k  k2
V1   r T Kr  r T  mT  m  r T   r
A. Adaptive Control without Constraint Control k 1 r  k   k
2
Consider the following signals 5 r  k k2 5

   k  k ˆ k
k 1 r k   k k 1 k
  qd  e , (10)
2
5 k k2
r 5

  r T Kr  r  mT m     k  k ˆ k
where   diag (1 ,..., n )  0 is a constant matrix. The filtered k 1 r k   k k 1 k
error surface r and its derivative r are defined as 2
5 r  k k2 5

  r T Kr  r  T      k  k ˆ k
r  q   , (11) k 1 r k   k k 1  k
r  q   . (12) 5 5
k
 r T Kr    k  k    k ˆ k
i 1 k 1  k
Based on the terms of the definitions of (11) and (12), (1) can
k 2 5 
5
 2 
be written as   r T Kr    k     k  k  k k 
k 1 2 k i 1  2k 
M (q )r  C (q, q )r  M (q )   C (q, q )   G (q )  Fu  u 5

 min ( K ) r   k  k2  
2
 C (q, q ) r   mT m  u , (13)
k 1 2 k
  V1   , (18)
where  m  [ M (q ) C ( q, q ) G (q ) Fu ]T ,  m  [   1 1]T ,
 m  [ M (q) C (q, q ) G(q) Fu ]T  [ 1 2  3 q 4 where   min[min ( K ),k / 2k ] / max[max ( M (q)),1/ k ]  0
5 ] , and i , i  1,...,5, are unknown finite positive constants 5 
  2 
  [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]T , and      k  k  k k  .
given in Assumption 1. A Lyapunov function candidate can k 1  2k 
be defined as follows:
Multiplying (18) by e t gives
5
1 T 1 2
V1  r M (q)r    k , (14)
2 k 1 2 k
d
dt
 
V1e t   e t . (19)

where  k   k  ˆ k , k  1,...,5, ˆ k are estimates of unknown

  t
 k , and k  0 are constants. The time derivative of (14) with Noting that 0  e t  1 , e  0 and (V1 (0)   /  ) e t

Property 3 and (13) is written as
 V1 (0) and integrating (19) over [0, t ] with the fact that leads
5 to the following inequality
 1  1
V1   r T C (q, q )  M (q )  r    k  k
 2  k 1  k     t  
 r T [ M (q )   C (q, q )   G (q )  Fu  u ] 0  V1 (t )   V1 (0)   e   V1 (0)  , t  0 . (20)
    

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Therefore, all error signals are semiglobally, uniformly, and (ii) when   ˆ , the filtered tracking errors then converge to
ultimately bounded [21] and e  0 and e  0 as t   by the
the regions r f    min(1 , 2 ) of the neighborhood in
Barbalat’s lemma [22].
rf  0 in finite time if  min and  m are selected
B. Adaptive Finite-Time Control without Constraint as  min   / V2 and  min   / V2 m , respectively, where
Control
 
1/ 2 m
The command vector  f and its derivative  f for finite time 1  2 /  min and 2  2 m  /  min .

performance are defined as follows: Proof: Theorem 1 can be verified easily from similar results in
[23],[24] and proof is omitted.
 From Theorem 1, it follows that e and e also converge to
 f  qd  1e  2 e sign(e) , (21) zero or the neighborhood in e  0 and e  0 in finite time.
 f  qd  1e  2 diag ( ei
 1
)e , (22) Remark 1: In (22), to avoid singularity because of 0    1 ,
the following condition is used as
where 1  diag (11 ,..., 1n )  0 and 2  diag (21 ,..., 2n )  0
 e  1 e, if e  0 and e  0
are a constant matrix and 0    1 is constant. The filtered 
  1
error surface r f and its derivative rf for finite time e    e, if e  0 and e  0 , (27)
 0, otherwise e  0
performance are defined as r f  q   f and rf  q   f , 
respectively. A Lyapunov function candidate for finite time where   0 is some small constant.
performance is defined as follows:

1 T 5
1 2 C. Adaptive Error-Constrained Finite-Time Control
V2  r f M (q)rf    k . (23) In this section, a new filtered error surface that guarantees
2 k 1 2 k
the error-constrained condition defined in the section II is
proposed. From (5) and (6), a command error vector with a
The following finite-time-based control and adaptive law are
constraint function  (t ) and its derivative (t ) are defined as
proposed as follows:

5 rf ˆ k  2fk   c  d  
1  2 e sign(e) ,
u   Kr f     rf sign(r f ) , (24)
k 1 rf  fk   k (28)
 1
2 c  d  
1   2 diag ( ei )e , (29)
k rf  2fk
ˆ k    k ˆ k , k  1,...,5 , (25)
r f  fk   k where   [ 1 ,..., n ]T is a transformed error vector,  i 
(1 i )1i , d   1qd  [d1,...,dn ]T , and  di  i1qdi .
where  f  [  f  f q  f T
1 1] . Similarly to (18), it
Defining  q   1q  [ q1 ,...,  qn ]T and  qi  i1qi , we then
follows that
have
2 n  i 1 5
k 2
V2  min ( K ) r f    i r fi   k     q  d , (30)
i 1 k 1 2 k

  2 ( i 1)/2 k
2 n 5
 min ( K ) rf    i rfi   k2   where   [1,..., n ]T and   diag (1,...,n ) . The constrained
i 1 k 1 2k filtered error surfaces rc and its derivative rc are defined as
m
  V2   mV2   , (26)
rc  q   c , (31)
m m
where  m  2 min[ i / max(max (M (q)) )] and  m  ( i min
rc  q  c . (32)
1) / 2 .
Theorem 1 (finite-time stability): Consider the closed-loop of a Based on the terms of (28)-(32), the dynamics in (1) can be
system consisting of the plant in (1), and following the control written as
and adaptive laws in (24) and (25). If Assumption 1 holds, then
the following conditions are satisfied:
M (q)rc  M (q)q  M (q) c
(i) when   ˆ , the filtered tracking errors converge to zero in
a finite time.   1[C (q, q )q  G (q)  Fu  u ]  M (q) q  M (q) c

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 C (q, q )[rc  c   1q]   1[G(q)  Fu  u ] Remark 3: The achievement of the properties (3) and (4)
provides that the desired tracking error performance
 M (q ) q  M ( q ) c specifications can be explicitly determined by appropriately
T
 C (q, q )rc   mcmc  1u , (33) selecting the parameters of the function  ; maximum
overshoot, minimum convergence rate, and maximum
steady-state error are determined by combination
where  mc  [ M (q ) C (q, q ) G ( q ) Fu ]T ,  mc  [ c  c  1
of 0 and a , a , and  ss , respectively. If the evolution of the
1]T ,  mc  [ M (q) C (q, q ) G (q) Fu ]T  [ c1 c 2 tracking error violates the constrained boundaries or required
c3 q c4 c5 ] , ci  i , i  1,..., 4, Fu  c5 , Fu   1 Fu control effort is not reasonable, the values of K ,  , and  as
well as  , which are specific to the application consideration,
 1C(q, q)q  M (q) q ,  q  [ qi ,..., qn]T , and  qi 
need to be adjusted.
i1 (qii   qii ) i2 (qii   qii2 ) . Considering the The graphical presentation for the error constraint in (28) and
following Lyapunov function candidate (31) is illustrated in Fig. 1.

5
1 T 1
V2  rc M (q) rc   ck2 , (34)
2 k 1 2ck

its time derivative with the result in (34) can be written as

5
1 1
V2  rcT C (q, q )rc  rcT M (q )rc    ck ck
2 k 1 ck

 rcT [ M (q ) c  C (q, q )  c   1G ( q )  Fu   1u ]

5
1
 rcT ( mc
T
mc   1u )   ck ˆ ck . (35)
k 1 ck
Fig. 1. Graphical presentation for the error constraint

The control input and adaptive laws are selected as follows:

D. Adaptive Error-Constrained Finite-Time Control for a
Lagrangian System with Deadzone Input Nonlinearity
 5
r ˆ  2  
u    Krc   c ck ck   rc sign(rc )  , (36) The recent tracking error constraint control schemes [16],
 k 1 rc ck   ck  [17] proved analytically the fact that if a prescribed error
2 2 performance is satisfied, the deadzone input nonlinear effect
ck rc ck
ˆ ck   ˆ ck , k  1,...,5 ,
 ck (37) can be compensated for its absence without requiring
rc ck   ck knowledge of deadzone characteristics, furthermore, either
utilizing adaptive observation techniques or neural/fuzzy
approximation scheme, which have been adopted frequently for
where c  [ c c q c  1 1]T , ck
  0 , and  ck  0
removing negative deadzone effect [18-20]. In this direction, it
are constants. Considering (36) and (37), we can obtain will be shown via both simulation and experiment that the
proposed error-constrained scheme has also aforementioned
5  
 1
5 
ck  2 property provided the prescribed constrained performance is
V2  rcT Krc   rc   ck2    ck  ck  ck ck  satisfied. However, in the previous studies [16],[17] only
k 1 2ck i 1  2ck  simulation demonstrations were presented. The dynamic

  2 m 
ck
n 5
equation of the Lagrangian systems with deadzone input
  i rfi 
2
 min ( K ) rc ck2   c , (38)
i 1 k 1 2 ck
nonlinearity is written as
5
where  c    ck  ck  ck
k 1
2
 ck / 2ck . Therefore, finite-time  M (q)q  C (q, q ) q  G (q )  Fu  D(u ) . (40)

stability is obtained, similarly to the case of Theorem 1. The deadzone function D : R  R is defined as
Remark 2: In order to satisfy the given constrained tracking
performance,  and  should be selected such that
 gl (u ) , u  bl
D (u )   0,  bl  u  br . (41)
  (0)  e(0) , if q(0)  qd (0)
 . (39)  g r (u ) , u  br
   0, if q(0)  qd (0)

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The constants bl , br  0 are not necessarily equal and known.
Their values determines the dead-band size. The functions gl :
( , bl ]  R , g r : [bl , )  R are locally Lipschitz, strictly
increasing and unknown to guarantee that D (u ) is locally
Lipschitz as well. The constraint control problem under
deadzone input nonlinearity is that the error-constrained
condition defined in the section II is satisfied by using the
control scheme proposed in (36) without considering any
additional deadzone compensator. In this section, a solution for
this problem is presented simply. More rigorous verifications
for compensating deadzone effect by the prescribed error
control scheme were presented in [17]. Defining F2  M (q) c
1
C (q, q )  c   G (q )  Fu , (35) is written as
V2   rcT [ M (q ) c  C (q, q )  c   1G ( q )  Fu   1 D (u )]
5
1
  ck ˆ ck
k 1 ck
5
1 motor axis and the ball-screw. In the XY table system, the
 rcT  F2   1 D(u )     ck ˆ ck
  ck k 1
5
1
 rcT  1   F2  D(u )    ck ˆck .
 k 1 ck
Owing to the boundedness of M ( q) , C (q, q ) , G (q) from the
properties1, 2 and the boundeness by construction of c ,  c ,
 with assumption of the boundedness of ck , Fu , it follows
that F2 is bounded as well. Then, the existence of an unknown
positive constant  * such that  F2   * , t  [0, ) is
guaranteed. By continuity of D and the monotonicity of
functions g r and gl , there always exists an unknown positive
constant d * such that u  d *  D(u )   * .Thus, V  
depend on the signal rc . In this respect, the proposed constraint
control scheme is highly robust against the dead-band size, i.e.,
the value of b  0 . However, as the dead-band size increases,
the price to be paid is the increase of the corresponding control
effort only by adjusting the value of K and  .
IV. APPLICATION EXAMPLES
In this section, simulated and experimental evaluations of the
proposed control scheme applied to the XY table and the
articulated manipulator systems are described.
A. Simulation and Experiment for the XY Table System
Fig. 1 shows the structure of the XY table control system, for
which the dynamic equation is written as
M ( q)q  C (q, q)q Fu  D(u) , (43)
where deadzone appears due to misalignment between the
gravity dynamics do not appear in (43) because the XY table
lies on the horizontal plane. In this system, M ( q) contains the
(42) unknown moment of inertia of each axis, which contains the
inertia of the servo motors. The friction dynamics of the
ball-screws, linear motion guides, and servo motors are
included in Fu . The controller is designed not to include any
dynamics or identify any of the parameters of the XY table
system. The specifications of the ball-screw, servo motor, and
sensor are given in Table 1. Three controllers are designed to
evaluate the proposed control scheme: the filtered-error-based
adaptive controller without finite-time and constraint control
(WO-FC), the filtered-error-based adaptive controller without
constraint control (WO-C), and the proposed controller
(Proposed). The WO-FC controller is designed as follows:
2 c

u  d * or, rc  
1
K1d *
5
r ˆ k k2
when equivalently when u   Kr     tanh(r ) . (44)
* k 1 r k   k
because fro u   rc K  d ,
5
1
where K  K   ˆckck
2
/ ( rc ck  ck )   rc .
k 1
Therefore, rc and u are bounded. The boundedness of signal
1
rc implies that rc  max{rc (0),  K1d * } .
Remark 4: Similar to the statements of [16], to obtain insight on
the operation of the proposed constraint scheme, deadzone is
assumed to have the symmetric and linear slope that
br  bl  b , g r (u )  u  b , and gl (u )  u  b . It is not difficult Fig. 2. Structure of the XY table control system

to verify that d *   *  b and thus rc  max{rc (0), TABLE I

XY TABLE SPECIFICATION
1
 K1 ( *  b)} . Because of the independence of  * on b , it Component Specification
is straightforward that in the presence of the deadzone, Servo motor type HP-KP23
i.e., b  0 , rc may become larger; even so, the properties of Servo amp. type MR-J3-20B
Lead of ball-screw 10mm (X, Y axis)
the proposed constraint controller remain unaltered, since it Motor power 200W (X-axis), 100W(Y-axis)
only requires rc  L and the constraint control action is mainly
Resolution of linear encoder 262144p/rev (X, Y axis)

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The designed controllers in Fig. 2 are implemented in the

Matlab RTI system via a MF624 board with 0.001 sec of
sampling time. The prescribed performance functions are
selected for the following two cases:  x  (3  0.08)e 9t
0.08 (mm) and  y  (3  0.1)e 9t 0.1 ( mm) . The
parameters for the control and adaptive laws are 11  40 ,
21  30 , 12  10 , 22  10 , k1  50 , k2  30 ,  1  30 ,
 2  20 ,  1  0.6 ,  2  0.6 , cx1  0.5 , cx 2  1.5 ,
cx3  0.8 , cx5  1 , cy1  0.5 , cy 2  1 , cy 3  1 , cx5  0.9 ,
 1  0.005 , cx
cx  2  0.002 , cx
 3  0.002 , cx
 5  0.001 ,
 2  0.0025 , cy 3  0.005 , cx5  0.001 ,
 1  0.005 , cy
cy
 x  0.1 , and  y  0.1 . The position commands are selected
as xd  2sin(0.8 t )(mm) and yd  2sin(0.8t)(mm) .
Fig. 3 shows the position tracking results via simulation
(Figs. 3 (a)-(f)) and experiment (Figs. 3 (g)-(k)) along x axis
and y axis, respectively. As shown in Figs. 3 (a), (b), (d), and
(e), the position tracking errors of the WO-FC and WO-C
schemes violate the prescribed constraint condition and the
control performances are sensitive to the variations of the
dead-band in the control input, whereas as shown in Figs. 3 (c)
and (f), the tracking errors of the proposed control system
remain within the constraint boundaries and are robust to the
variations of the dead-band in the control input.
Experimental results given in Figs. 3 (g) and (h) show that
the proposed scheme satisfies the prescribed control
performance. On the other hand, the WO-FC and WO-C
schemes don’t satisfy the prescribed performance. As stated in
the section III, the tracking errors of the proposed control
scheme remains within the prescribed boundary regardless to
deadzone compensation via the inverse deadzone method as
shown in Fig. 3 (i) though the inverse deadzone was used. The
root mean square (RMS) values for the tracking error of
WO-FC, WO-C, and proposed control scheme are presented in
Table II. The RMS error sizes of the WO-C and proposed
systems are small, reaching a maximum of 34% and 24% that

Fig. 3. Simulation and experimental results of the XY table system. 1)

Simulation results for the dead-band variation: (a) Tracking errors of
WO-FC scheme in the x-axis. (b) Tracking errors of WO-C scheme in
the x-axis. (c) Tracking errors of Proposed scheme in the x-axis. (d)
Tracking errors of WO-FC scheme in the y-axis. (e) Tracking errors of

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WO-C scheme in the y-axis. (f) Tracking errors of Proposed scheme in  1  60 ,  2  40 ,  1  0.2 ,  2  0.2 , c11  0.2 , c12  0.2 ,
the y-axis. 2) Experimental results: (g) Tracking error of WO-FC, WO-C,
and Proposed schemes in the x-axis. (h) WO-FC, WO-C, and Proposed cx3  0.8 , c14  1 , c15  0.8 , c 21  1.5 , c 22  2 ,
schemes in the y-axis. (i)Tracking errors using the Proposed scheme
with(W)/without(WO) deadzone compensation in the x-axis. (j) The c 23  2 , c14  3 , c 25  3 , c11  0.01 , c12  0.01 ,
control inputs of each scheme in the x-axis. c13  0.001 , c14  0.035 c15  0.025 , c 21  0.02 ,
of the WO-FC system because they use finite-time and c 22  0.01 , c 23  0.001 , c 24  0.03 , c 25  0.025 1  0.1 ,
constraint control implemented in the controller. As mentioned and  2  0.1 . The joint position commands are selected
previously and shown in Figs. 3 (j), no excessive chattering
as qd 1  0.1sin(0.8 t ) ( rad ) and qd 2  0.1sin(0.8 t ) (rad ) .
appears in the control inputs.
The designed controllers are implemented using the Matlab
TABLE II RTI system via a MF624 board and the sampling time is
RMS TRACKING ERROR OF THE XY TABLE SYSTEM selected as 0.001 sec.
Axis WO-FC WO-C Proposed
Fig. 5 shows the simulated (Figs. 5 (a)-(f)) and experimental
X-axis 0.128 mm (100 %) 0.094 mm (73 %) 0.043 mm (34%) (Figs. 5 (g)-(n)) results for the manipulator system. The joint
Y-axis 0.152 mm (100 %) 0.087 mm (57 %) 0.037 mm (24%)
position tracking errors for the variations of the dead-band in
the control input are shown in Figs. 5 (a)-(f) according to the
B. Simulation and Experiment for the Articulated joint position sine-wave commands. In the proposed scheme,
Manipulator System the tracking errors remain within the prescribed bound and, and
As a second application example, the articulated manipulator the constraint performance is satisfied in spite of the variations
of the dead-band. On the other hand, the tracking errors of the
shown in Fig. 4 is selected. Among the four links of the robot
WO-FC and the WO-C systems violate the prescribed error
manipulator, only two links (upper arm = link1, forearm=link2)
bounds and the tracking performances of both schemes are
were selected and the manipulator parameters are presented in
sensitive to the variations of the dead-band. In the experimental
Table III. From (1), the dynamic parameters for two degree-of results shown in Figs 5. (g)-(j), the proposed scheme satisfies
- freedom links of the manipulator are described as M (q )q  the prescribed tracking performance, while other systems do
C(q, q)q  G(q)  Fu  D(u) , where Fu contains the unknown not. Similarly to the XY table system, the proposed control
joint friction and the external disturbance. The prescribed scheme has robustness to deadzone as shown in Figs. 5 (k) and
(l), where the tracking errors remains within the constraint
constraint functions are selected as 1  (0.3 0.006)e 5t boundary regardless of deadzone compensation via the inverse
0.006(rad) and 2  (0.3  0.005)e5t  0.005(rad ) . deadzone method. Figs. 5 (m) and (n) show the control inputs
with no excessive chattering problem.
Next, the experiment for the step input command was
executed in order to ascertain finite-time convergence
performance of the WO-C and the proposed control scheme.
The command inputs are selected as qd1  0.2  0.1e3t  0.05e6t
( rad ) and qd 2  0.1 0.06e3t  0.015e12t ( rad ) with the initial
condition q1 (0)  0.18( rad ) and q2 (0)  0.14 (rad ) . The
Fig. 4. Photograph and diagram of the articulated manipulator control
system. constraint functions were selected as 1 (t )  (0.3  0.0005)e 5t
TABLE III 0.0005(rad ) and 2 (t )  (0.3  0.0005)e 5t 0.0005(rad ) .
MANIPULATOR PARAMETERS Figs. 6 (a) and (b) show the tracking output of each control
Symbol Parameter Value system, where the WO-C and the proposed systems show faster
response than the WO-FC system because of finite time control.
m1, m2 mass of link1 and 2 12.1kg , 3.59kg However, the WO-C system still violates the constraint bound,
L1, L2 mass of link1 and 2 0.3m, 0.41m but the proposed control scheme satisfies the constraint
ni gear ratio of reduction gear 65.5 conditions as shown in Figs. 6 (c) and (d). The RMS error sizes
Rmi resistance of motor 0.8294  of the WO-C and proposed systems are small, reaching a
torque constant 0.0182 Nm/A
maximum of 17% and 29% that of the WO-FC system because
kti
they use finite-time and constraint control implemented in the
kbi back emf constant 0.0182 V/rad/sec
controller.

Similarly to the case of the XY table system, three controllers V. CONCLUSION

are used to evaluate the proposed control scheme, namely, the
WO-FC, the WO-C, and the proposed controller (Proposed).
The parameters of the control and adaptive laws given are
11  80 , 12  30 , 21  60 , 22  20 , k1  80 , k2  60 ,
A robust adaptive control system that satisfies the prescribed
performance, a fast convergence time, and robustness to
input nonlinearity has been developed for the Lagrangian
mechanical system without using FLS or NN approximations,
or identifying the unknown system parameters without/with

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unknown deadzone parameters. A new constrained filtered

tracking error surface is proposed to ensure that the given
tracking error constraint conditions are met. The proposed
control scheme satisfies the prescribed tracking performance
without requiring any intelligent approximation techniques or
identification of unknown dynamics as well as deadzone input
nonlinearity. In addition, a finite-time control term is
introduced to provide fast error convergence. Therefore, the
designed controller has a simple structure and can be
conveniently applied to positioning control for the Lagrangian
systems. Simulated and experimental demonstrations of the XY
table and articulated manipulator systems with deadzone in the
control input verify the satisfactory prescribed position
tracking performance of the proposed control scheme.

Fig. 5. Position tracking results for the articulated manipulator system

for the sine-wave command. 1) Simulation for the variations of the
dead-band: (a) Tracking error of WO-FC scheme in the link 1. (b)
Tracking error of WO-C scheme in the link 1. (c) Tracking error of
Proposed scheme in the link 1. (d) Tracking error of WO-FC scheme in
the link 2. (e) Tracking error of WO-C scheme in the link 2. (f) Tracking
error of Proposed scheme in the link 2. 2) Experiment: (g) Tracking
errors of WO-FC, WO-C, and Proposed schemes in link1. (h) Tracking
errors of WO-FC, WO-C, and Proposed schemes in link2. (i) Tracking
errors in link 1 using Proposed scheme with(W)/without(WO) deadzone
compensation. (j) Tracking errors in link 2 of Proposed scheme
with(W)/without(WO) deadzone compensation. (k) Control inputs of
WO-FC, WO-C, and Proposed schemes in link 1. (l) Control inputs of
WO-FC, WO-C, and Proposed schemes in link 2.

TABLE IV
RMS TRACKING ERROR FOR SINE-WAVE COMMAND OF THE ROBOT SYSTEM
Link WO-FC WO-C Proposed
Link1 0.012 rad (100 %) 0.006 rad (50 %) 0.002 rad (17%)
Link2 0.013 rad (100 %) 0.008 rad (86 %) 0.003 rad (29%)

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Fig. 6. Position tracking results of the articulated manipulator system for
the step command. (a) Tracking output in link1. (b) Tracking output in
link2. (c) Tracking errors in link1. (d) Tracking errors in link2.
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Seong Ik Han (M’12) received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees in mechanical engineering from Pusan
National University, Busan, Korea, in 1987 and 1989,
respectively, and the Ph. D. in mechanical design
engineering from Pusan National University, Busan,
in 1995. From 1995 to 2009, he was an associate
professor of electrical automation of Suncheon First
College, Korea. Now he is with the Department of
electronic engineering, Pusan National University,
Korea. His research interests include intelligent
control, nonlinear control, robotic control, vehicle
system control, and steel process control.
Jang Myung Lee (SM’03) received the B.S. and M.S.
degree in electronic engineering from Seoul National
University, Seoul, Korea, in 1980 and 1982,
respectively, and the Ph. D. degree in computer
engineering from the University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, in 1990.
Since 1992, he has been a Professor with Pusan
National University, Busan, Korea. He was the Leader
of the “Brain Korea 21 Project” of Pusan National
University. His research interests include intelligent
robotics, advanced control algorithm, and specialized
environment navigation/localization. Prof. Lee was the former president of the
Korean Robotics Society.