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A Separation Principle For A Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems (Loria, Panteley) 1999
A Separation Principle For A Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems (Loria, Panteley) 1999
Class of Euler-Lagrange
Systems
Antonio Lorfa v and Elena Panteley t
1 Introduction
The solution to the state feedback tracking control problem of fully damped
Euler-Lagrange systems (in particular, rigid-robot manipulators) has been
known from many years now - for a literature review, see e.g. [22, 27] -.
Nevertheless, a drawback of many of the available results in the litera-
ture is that they require the measurement of joint velocities which may be
contaminated by noise. An ad hoc solution, often taken in practice, is to
numerically differentiate the joint positions. However, it has been shown
experimentally [2] that this method is inefficient for high and slow veloci-
ties.
This has motivated researchers in the robotics community to solve the
global output feedback control problem of robot manipulators. This problem
has been open for many years now.
As in the regulation control problem, an approach alternative to numer-
ical differentiation, that has been widely considered in the literature, is to
design an observer that makes use of position information to reconstruct
the velocity signal. Then, the controller is implemented replacing the ve-
locity measurement by its estimate. Even though the certainty equivalence
does not apply for general nonlinear systems, the rationale behind this ap-
proach is precisely that the estimate will converge to the true signal, and
this should in turn entail stability of the closed loop. As far as we know,
some of the earliest works on state estimation for robot manipulators are
[20, 17] and some of the references therein. See also [21] for some inter-
esting experimental results. In [17] the authors used a nonlinear observer
that reproduces the robot dynamics, in a P D plus gravity compensation
scheme. The authors prove the equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable
provided the observer gain satisfies some lower bound determined by the
robot parameters and the trajectories error norms. See also [7] where a
sliding mode approach is taken.
230 3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems
ensures GUAS.
Later, A.A.J. Lefeber proposed in [10] an approach which consists on
applying a global output feedback set point control law (for instance an EL
controller) from the initial time to until some "switching time" t~, at which
it is supposed t h a t the trajectories are contained in some pre-specified
bounded set. At time t~ one switches to a local o u t p u t feedback tracking
control law (such as any among those mentioned above). The obvious draw-
back of this idea is that the controller is no longer smooth, furthermore,
the switching time may depend on bounds on the unmeasured variables.
The results contained in I10] concern the existence of the time instant ts
such that the closed loop system is GUAS.
Most recently, based on the controller of [13] the authors of [28] proposed
a dynamic output feedback controller for the multivariable case. The Lya-
punov stability proof for the closed loop system is carried out relying on a
nonlinear change of coordinates (See Eqs. 35 and 39 of that reference). This
change of coordinates is not invertible, and therefore the controller the au-
thors propose in [28] is not implementable without velocity measurements,
for any intial conditions of the dynamic extension.
In [5] an elegant alternative result for one-degree-of-freedom systems was
reported. The controller proposed in [5] is based upon a global nonlinear
change of coordinates which makes the system affine in the unmeasured
velocities. This is crucial to define a very simple controller which has at
most linear growth in the state variables, as a matter of fact the proposed
controller is of a P D + type. This must be contrasted with the exponential
growth of the control law proposed in [13], due to the use of hyperbolic
trigonometric functions. Hence, from a practical point of view, the con-
troller of [5] supersedes by far that of [13]. The work of [5] suggests that
more attention should be payed to the modelling stage of the control design.
As far as we know, the position tracking control problem stated at the
beginning of this section for any initial conditions and for n-degrees-of-
freedom EL systems still remains openr In this chapter we will present a
solution to this problem, for a class of n-degrees of freedom EL systems
(including robot manipulators). The systems belonging to this class, allow
a factorisation which does not exhibit the Coriolis effects in the dynamic
model. Inspired by [5, 9, 24], we consider a kinematics model which in other
words, provides a global change of coordinates. As it will become clear later,
the model considered here covers a fairly wide class of EL systems, however,
in general, it is very difficult to find such factorisation.
Our main result is to prove that, for this class of EL systems, it is possible
to design a state observer and a state feedback controller independently of
each other. T h a t is, we will establish a separation principle for a class of
EL systems. Our results are an extension of [14] to the tracking problem,
i.e., to the time-varying case. In a more general context, some work on
separation principles for nonlinear systems has been done recently for local
stabilisation of input-output linearizable systems [1] and for the case of
232 3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems
nonaffine systems in [12]. Our results differ from those of in the latter
references in that, neither high gains nor bounded feedbacks are required.
Moreover, we consider here time-varying systems.
This chapter is organised as follows. In next section we present the model
we consider here. In Section 3.1 we construct a state estimator and prove
global exponential stability in closed loop with the plant dynamics and
kinematics. In Section 3.2 we construct a state feedback controller and
prove global exponential stability. In Section 3.3 we establish our sepa-
ration principle, i.e., we prove that, if the state-feedback control law is
implemented using the state estimates, the overall closed loop system is
uniformly globally asymptotically stable (UGAS). Finally, in Section 4 we
discuss our results, when applied to robot manipulators.
-- -- u (3.1)
dt Oq
where the Lagrangian s ~)) := T(q, O) - ~;(q). It is assumed that the
kinetic energy function is of the quadratic form,
:r(r O) = 10TD(q)q
where the inertia matrix D(q) C N nx'~ is positive definite and uniformly
bounded. The potential energy function, ~;(q), is assumed to be uniformly
bounded from below, i.e., we assume that there exists a real number c, such
that l;(q) > c for all q E ll~'~.
As it is well known, using the Christoffel symbols of the first kind [26, 24],
the system (3.1) can be rewritten in the form
where, in our notation, the matrix C(q, O) contains the terms corresponding
to centrifugal and Coriolis effects, and the vector g(q) :-- ~ Oq
As it is discussed in [13], a common drawback of o u t p u t feedback con-
trollers relying on Lyapunov design, is that certain 3rd order terms t h a t
3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems 233
P 2 dJ(q)
dt =: j ( q ' ~)) is globally Lipschitz in ~, uniformly in q; i.e., there
exists k~ > 0 such that,
If a function J(q) with the properties above is available, we can rewrite the
model (3.2) as
where the dynamics (3.5) of the system have been expressed separately
from the kinematic model (3.6).
Notice that under the assumption that the inertia matrix D(q) is positive
definite, there exists a uniformly bounded function A : ]R'~ --, ~n such
that A(q)TA(q) > 0 for all q 9 IR'L While this property is true in general for
positive definite matrices, it is usually very hard to find such factorisation
for n degrees of freedom systems.
In [8, 9, 14] the model (3.5,3.6) represents the dynamics an kinematics of
a surface vessel, for small motion applications. In [5], the author proposed a
"change of coordinates" similar to (3.6) for one-degree-of-freedom systems.
The control problem we solve in this chapter is the following.
are UGAS. Our motivation for considering this class of systems, is that
the sufficient conditions for UGAS of cascades, are often easier to verify
than to find a Lyapunov function for the system (El, E2), with a negative
definite time derivative. In particular, in this chapter we will use Theorem
2 from [23].
In classic Lyapunov control design, one aims at designing a control law
which yields a Lyapunov function with a negative definite derivative. In
our control design for EL systems in the form (3.5,3.6), the system E2
will be the estimation error dynamics, hence, our first goal is to construct
3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems 235
= -Ko2(q)~ (3.12)
= J(q)D - Ko, q. (3.13)
where Pi E N '~x'~ and/~ e IE~x" are positive definite matrices. The time
derivative of Vo(q, F,) along the trajectories of (3.13,3.12) yields
= J ( q ) - - 4d + Kp4. (3.i7)
3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems 237
The control design consists on finding r(t, q, q) such that the closed loop
system have the form
= --Kds--O (3.18)
L
q = -KpO+s. (3.19)
The obvious reason we aim at such closed loop system, is that (3.18, 3.19)
is globally exponentially stable for any positive definite matrices Kd and
Kp. This can be verified, using the Lyapunov function candidate
hence, substituting the right hand side of (3.18) in (3.21) we have that the
latter is satisfied if we apply the control law 7 = T*, with
This control law can be implemented under the assumptions that velocity
and position measurements are available, J(q) is invertible, and using (3.6).
We conclude that the system (3.5, 3.6) in closed loop with (3.22) is glob-
ally exponentially stable for any positive definite matrices Kp and /(d.
q := q--qd:=J(q)5--qd (3.24)
g := ( J ( q ) 5 - (td + Kp~). (3.25)
(t + J(q(t))F,
-Ko2(q(t)) (t 1 (3.30)
where the interconnection term
g(t,s,~,~,~) := [ gl(t,s,~,~,Kt
0 ) I.
In order to study the stability of (3.29-3.31), we present below a theorem
which follows from the proofs of [23, Theorems 1 and 2] for nonautonomous
cascades.
T h e o r e m 3.2 Assume that the system (3.9) is UGAS and that the trajec-
tories of (3.8) are globally bounded, uniformly in the initial states and the
initial time ( xo, to). If moreover, Assumptions A3 - A5 below are satisfied,
then the solutions x(t, to, Xo) of the system (3. 7,3.8) are globally uniformly
bounded. If.furthermore, the system (3.8) is UGAS, then so is the origin
of the cascade (3.7,3.8).
A3 There exists a Lyapunov.function V ( t, xl) .for (3.9) such that V : I~>_o
I~n --~ 1~>_o is positive de.finite (that is V(t,0) ---- 0 and V(t, xl) > 0
for all xl ~ O) and radially unbounded, which satisfies
A 4 There exist two continuous .functions 01, 02 : ]I{>O ~ ]I~>_O, such that
g(t, x) satisfies
A 5 There exists a class 1~ function r such that, .for all to > O, the
trajectories of the system (3.8) satisfy
-Kas- ~ '
corresponds to the closed loop system with the state feedback control law
r*, which was designed to be GES for any positive definite Kp and Kd.
Also, it is clear that the Lyapunov function (3.20) satisfies A3 above.
We show now, that g(t, ~, s, q, r,) as defined in (3.31,3.27), satisfies As-
sumption A 4 of Theorem 3.2. For this, consider the following bounds:
mM [ I
01(114; Pl]) "-- kjm (k'pM+ kdM)kjM + 2kjkjM~d]~jm J -]- mMk;kjMkjm H~][2
2]~;~jMmM
O2(llq; 11) .- kym (kpu + 1)11 11.
Therefore, the trajectories (~(t), s(t), q(t), F(t)) of the overall closed loop
system (3.5,3.6), (3.10,3.11), T = ~ and (3.23), are uniformly bounded for
any initial conditions. Since qd(t) and Oa(t) are uniformly bounded, so are
0(t) and q(t) for all initial conditions. Finally, from (3.6) and P r o p e r t y P 1
it follows that ~(t) is also uniformly bounded for all initial conditions.
At this point, we can invoke Proposition 3.1 to conclude that the origin
(4, ~) = (0, 0) of the time-varying system
= -Ko2(q(t))q
= Z(q(t))~ - Kol~
in an inertial reference frame, with origin at the centre of mass of the i-th
link. Define also, the position and orientation Jacobians for the i-th link as
the maps, J ) : N~ --~ N axn and J~ : ~ --~ N3x~ from the space of linear
and angular velocities into generalised velocities, i.e., let
~i = J~p(q)il (3.36)
wi = J~)(q)gt. (3.37)
i T -i i "~
:r(p, =
i=1
J (q)
J~(q) (3.40)
fl(q) := R~(q)J~(q)
RTn(q)J~)(q)
hence we have that
:= ,7(q)O. (3.41)
Using all these definitions, the kinetic energy function can be rewritten
(with an obvious abuse of notation) as
T ( v ) = vTA4u (3.43)
242 3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems
where A/t := blockdiag{mlI, ... , rnnI, I~, ... , I~} where I E IR3x3 is the
identity matrix and we recall that I~ is the constant inertia tensor of the
i-th link, i.e., referred to the inertial frame.
Concerning the potential energy of the manipulator, this is given by
A/tu + v = 7- (3.45)
v:--[ 0L/(P) T
Op , O, ... , On
IT
and which is subject to the holonomic constraints imposed by the kinemat-
ics equation (3.41).
Two observations are important at this point. Firstly notice that the
manipulator model (3.45,3.41) is of the form (3.5,3.6) except of course, for
if(q) which is not square. Moreover, it can be shown that J(q) satisfies P 1
and P 2 . Indeed, P 1 holds since if(q) is full column rank. This is equivalent
to the assumption that the inertia matrix is positive definite and its induced
norm is bounded from above.
Secondly, differentiating (3.41) with respect to time and substituting for
~, in (3.45), we obtain that
[JTJ~j](q)~+[JTA42](q,~1)o+jT(q)v=JT(q)T. (3.46)
The inertia matrix D(q) := y(q)TA/tff(q) is positive definite i.f and only i.f
the "Jacobian" J ( q ) is of full column rank and A/[ is positive definite. Also,
it is easy to see that, defining the Coriolis and centrifugal matrix C(q, il) :=
[ j T A 4 f f ] (q, 0), the matrix 0.5D(q, q ) - C ( q , (1) is skew-symmetric. Finally,
the gravity forces vector
q := J(q)D-(~d (3.48)
:= (J(q)P - qd + Kp~) (3.49)
j(q) := j(q)t := [j(q)T j ( q ) ] - I j(q)T (3.50)
together with the observer (3.10,3.11), renders the robot manipulator sys-
tem (3.46), UGAS. However, it shall be remarked that the observer system
was designed under the implicit assumption that the coordinates ~ are lin-
early independent. In the case of the robot manipulator, ~ c ]l~6n and these
variables are subject to 5n holonomic constraints. The physical meaning of
these constraints is clear if we recall that a manipulator consists of an open
kinematic chain of n rigid linked bodies.
Therefore, strictly speaking, we cannot talk about UGAS, more specifi-
cally, of global (uniform) attractivity of the origin (~, P, ~, s) = (0, O, O, 0).
Yet, based on the results of the previous section, we conjecture the follow-
ing.
5 Conclusions
We have addressed in this chapter, the problem of output feedback trajec-
tory tracking of Euler Lagrange systems. For a subclass of these systems
(including manipulators), characterised by certain factorisation, we have
provided a separation principle. Our main result establishes that, if a glob-
ally exponentially stabilising state feedback controller can be implemented
using the state estimates provided by a globally exponentially convergent
observer; the overall closed loop system, remains uniformly globally asymp-
totically stable. Even though our results cannot be directly applied to robot
manipulators, for these systems, we have conjectured the weaker property
of UGS plus global uniform convergence of part of the state variables. These
include the position and velocity tracking errors. The proof of the latter is
currently under investigation.
Acknowledgements
This work was realised while the authors were with the Dept. of ECE,
University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, under grant NSF-9812346.
244 3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems
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246 3. A Separation Principle for a Class of Euler-Lagrange Systems
{ OW(t,~l) }
max ]lh(t,~l)l[, ~1 -< Pl(llSlll)llStll (3.53)
A 2 There exist class-]Coo .functions (~1 and c~2 and # > 0 such that
f OG(t,~) OG(t,~)
max _< pa(ll ll),
l ---5V- ' }
i=1,2 (3.60)