2014 13th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics & Vision
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, 10-12th December 2014 (ICARCV 2014)
Disturbance Observer based Terminal Sliding Mode
Control of an Underwater Manipulator
Vinoth Venkatesan, Santhakumar Mohan
Centre for Robotics and Control, Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Indore
Indore, India
vinoth1993@gmail.com, santhakumar@iiti.ac.in
Abstract—This paper addresses the issue of developing a
robust and efficient controller for a manipulator for underwater
applications by proposing a terminal sliding mode control scheme
along with a disturbance observer and incorporating the same for
3-RRR serial spatial manipulator to ensure finite time
convergence as asymptotic convergence in undesirable in
underwater tasks like positioning and tracking of a trajectory.
The performance of the proposed scheme is studied using
extensive numerical simulations depicting practical
circumstances with external disturbances and parameter
uncertainties within the system. The capability of the control
scheme to overcome hydrodynamic forces and moments
including added mass effects, damping effects are extensively
studied and validated for the control scheme. The dynamic
modelling is done using the Euler-Lagrangian approach involving
the energy associated with the system. The results are presented
after analyzing the trajectory tracking capabilities of the
manipulator in the presence of external disturbances and model
uncertainties.
Keywords—terminal sliding mode control, underwater
manipulator control, disturbance observer, finite time
convergence.
I. INTRODUCTION
Underwater manipulators are an integral part of underwater
vehicles which are used extensively for underwater
exploration and investigation. Hence it is crucial to understand
the dynamics of these manipulators when they are subject to
hydrodynamic conditions when coupled with an underwater
vehicle. More specifically, the development of a self-
governing manipulator has been studied in [1 and 2]. An
analysis of the tracking capabilities of these manipulator
systems were performed in [2].
As compared to their terrestrial counterparts, underwater
manipulators are subject to a lot of external disturbances like
the presence of varying hydrodynamic forces, underwater
currents, etc., their non-linear and time varying nature. Several
approaches have been proposed in literature to overcome these
shortcomings and numerous control schemes have been
proposed for the same including hybrid force and position
control, adaptive control, etc. [3-8]. Apart from these
disturbances, sensor noises and actuator limitations make the
controller more complicated. In spite of the development of
these control schemes, traditional controllers such as PID,
978-1-4799-5199-4/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
Fr34.5
Jinwhan Kim
Division of Ocean Systems Engineering
Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
jinwhan@kaist.ac.kr
sliding mode control are being used for practical control of
these manipulators. Most of the above mentioned control
schemes require the knowledge of all the states of the system
during control which is not feasible for low-cost applications.
Consequently, there is a need of a robust control scheme
which is able to adapt to these disturbances and perform
efficiently even when the knowledge of all the state vectors
are not available. Hence, in this paper, emphasis is given to
developing a control scheme for a 3-RRR serial manipulator
which is able to perform flawlessly in the presence of
parameter variations and external disturbances. The proposed
control scheme will perform even in the presence of limited
state measurements.
The control scheme proposed includes a disturbance
observer which estimates the states, the measurements of
which are unavailable and hence the cost-effectiveness of the
system increases manifold. Only the position measurements of
the actuators are assumed to be available as they are easy to
obtain using potentiometers. One of the shortcomings of the
aforementioned control schemes is that they ensure asymptotic
stability with infinite time for convergence. This issue is
addressed in this paper and finite time convergence of the
controller is attained using the proposed control scheme. In
this paper, the dynamic modelling of the system is done using
the Euler-Lagrangian energy formulation method. The
dynamic equations of the manipulator are then improvised
considering the hydrodynamic effects on the manipulator by
incorporating a damping vector which cumulatively considers
all the dynamic effects like skin friction, buoyancy forces and
balancing. The performance of the manipulator is assessed by
numerical simulations which establish the effectiveness of the
controller in negating the external disturbances and parameter
variations and ensuring finite time convergence.
The paper continues on as follows: the kinematic and the
dynamic modelling of the manipulator is derived in section 2.
Section 3 provides the proposed control scheme involving the
terminal sliding mode control with the disturbance observer
incorporated into it followed by the stability analysis for the
same. The performance analysis of the controller is elucidated
by performing positioning and trajectory tracking in section 4.
The conclusions of the paper are presented in section 5.
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 II. DYNAMIC MODELLING OF THE MANIPULATOR TABLE I. D-H PARAMETERS CONSIDERED FOR THE MANIPULATOR
A. Kinematic modelling of the manipultor Joint
Joint Link length Link offset Joint angle
Fig.1 shows the axis systems associated with the distance
axis(k) ( l k −1 ) ( α k −1 ) ( θk )
manipulator and that the manipulator considered has three ( dk )
input parameters namely θ1 , θ 2 and θ 3 , which are the input 1. 0 0ο 0.5 θ1
angles in the configuration space thus giving the manipulator
three degrees of freedom. The forward and the inverse 2. 0.4 90ο 0 θ2
kinematic solution for the manipulator had been derived in [9] 3. 0.3 0ο 0 θ3
and the same is used here.
Forward kinematics: The forward kinematic solutions which
had been developed using the Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) are
given as follows.

x = cos θ 1 ( L1 + L2 cos θ 2 + L3 cos( θ 2 + θ 3 ));

y = sin θ1 ( L1 + L2 cos θ 2 + L3 cos( θ 2 + θ 3 ));
(1)
z = d 1 + L2 sin θ 2 + L3 sin( θ 2 + θ 3 )

where x , y and z are the task space parameters of the end

effector of the manipulator in the reference frame, L1, L2 and
L3 are the link lengths of the manipulator.

Figure 2. A render of the manipulator with a gripper (the gripper has not
been included in the analysis)

Inverse kinematics: The inverse kinematic solution of the

system is given as follows. Since the control is using joint
space variables, the usage of the inverse kinematic solution
is inevitable.

θ1 = a tan 2( y , x );
θ 2 = a tan 2( ab − bc ,ac + bd );
(2)
θ3 = a tan 2(sin θ 3 ,cos θ 3 )

where,

a 2 + b 2 − L12 − L22 sin θ 3 = 1 − cos 2 θ 3 ;

cos θ 3 = ;
2 L1L2
(3)
x
a= ; b = z − d1 ;
cos θ1
c = L2 cos θ 3 + L1 ;
Figure 1. Enumeration of the kinematic parameters d = L3 sin θ 3
The D-H parameters which have been used here for
simulation purposes are given in Table 1. Considerable B. Dynamic modelling of the manipulator
parameters are used given the application of the manipulator
and a rough estimation of the workspace which is to be Appreciating the relationship between the joint forces and
available to the manipulator. joint parameters enables us to design the controller as the input
forces have a direct effect on the end effector. As mentioned

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earlier, the Euler-Lagrangian energy formulation method has where ς = [θ1 θ 2 θ 3 ]T is the vector of joint space variables
been used to determine the dynamic formulations. The motive
behind choosing this method is its simplicity, the recursive for the manipulator representing the joint angles, M(ς ) is the
nature and the accuracy with which it predicts the relationship inertia matrix, C(ς , ς ) is the Coriolis matrix representing the
between the input forces and the joint parameters. The energy centripetal effects on the manipulator, D(ς , ς ) is the matrix
associated with the system is the sum of the potential energy
and the kinetic energy of the system. The effect of the comprising of the damping effects on the manipulator
hydrodynamic parameters will be added to the manipulator instigated by the hydrodynamic effects on the manipulator,
dynamic equations at a later stage. The kinetic energy of the G(ς ) is the gravity term which represents the restoring forces
system is given by in the manipulator. Here,  is the vector of joint forces and
 dis =  idis +  edis is the vector of disturbances consisting of
1 §1 1 1 ·
KE = I yy1θ12 + ¨ m2 vcT vc2 + I yy 2θ12 + I zz 2θ22 ¸ both internal and external disturbances, where  idis represents
2 ©2 2 2 2 ¹
internal disturbances in the system which includes internal
§1 1 1 2·
+ ¨ m3vcT vc3 + I yy 3θ12 + I zz 3 θ2 + θ3 ¸; ( ) (4) system noises, process noises during measurement, etc.,
©2 3 2 2 ¹ and  edis represents the external disturbances like payload
variations, vibrations, etc.
where, vc1 and vc2 are the velocities of the center of mass of
III. CONTROL SCHEME OF THE UNDERWATER
links 2 and 3. MANIPULATOR
The eventual objective of this paper is to develop a control
ª xc º ªθ1 º ª xc º ªθ1 º scheme for the manipulator discussed here which is robust and
« 2» « » « 3» « »
= « yc2 » = J 2 «θ2 »; vc3 = « y c3 » = J 3 «θ2 »
responsive to disturbances – both internal and external – and
vc2
uncertainties while at the same time having a finite time of
« zc » «θ3 » « zc » «θ3 » (5)
convergence. A study of the literature suggests that most of
¬ 2¼ ¬ ¼ ¬ 3¼ ¬ ¼
the controllers described till date assume that the system
parameters are accurate and the disturbances are measured by
ª − cos θ 2 sin θ1 − sin θ 2 cos θ1 0º sensors directly. But the state measurements available are
cos θ 2 cos θ1 − sin θ 2 sin θ1 0»
L1 «
J2 = generally inaccurate and it is challenging to directly measure
2 « » the disturbances like the friction effects, the buoyancy
«¬ 0 cos θ 2 0»¼ (6)
variation, and uncertainties in the model parameters. Hence, a
control scheme which is able to adapt itself to these
ª L2 L2 º disturbances and uncertainties is proposed here wherein the
«− L1 cos θ 2 + 2 cos (θ2 + θ 3 ) sin θ1 − L1 sin θ 2 cos θ1 − 2 sin (θ2 + θ 3 ) cos θ1 » disturbances are estimated explicitly by a disturbance observer
« L2 L2 »
J 3 = « L1 cos θ 2 + cos (θ2 + θ 3 ) cos θ1 − L1 sin θ 2 sin θ1 − sin (θ2 + θ 3 ) sin θ1 » (7) and the control inputs are determined by the use of a terminal
« 2 2 »
« 0 L2 cos θ 2
L2
cos (θ2 + θ 3 ) » sliding mode control – which is a modified version of the
«¬ 2 »¼
sliding mode control – to ensure finite time convergence by
the addition of a non-linear in the design of the sliding surface
The potential energy of the system is given as follows for faster convergence as compared to the asymptotic stability
guaranteed by the sliding mode control.
§d · § L ·
PE = m1 g ¨ 1 ¸ + m2 g ¨ d1 + 1 sin θ 2 ¸ Disturbance Observer: The disturbances in the system can be
© 2¹ © 2 ¹
estimated by a standard observer which was proposed for a
§ L · (8) manipulator [10]. Here, it is assumed that the joint
+ m3 g ¨ d1 + L1 sin θ 2 + 2 sin (θ 2 + θ 3 )¸; acceleration measurements are available.
© 2 ¹
where g is the acceleration due to gravity. The potential
energy has been derived considering the first link to be vertical
{
τˆdis = − Lτˆ d + L M̂ (ς )ς + Ĉ (ς ,ς )ς − τ } (11)

for simplification. The dynamic model of the system can be

derived from the Euler-Lagrangian formulation Since we don’t assume the availability of the acceleration
measurements explicitly the aforementioned observer model
d § ∂L · ∂L can be amended so that no acceleration measurements are
¨ ¸− = fi
dt ¨© ∂ri ¸¹ ∂ri (9) needed by the introduction of an auxiliary variable z as
follows.
where L=KE-PE is the Lagrangian term. The dynamic
equations of the system can be written in matrix form as z = τˆ d − ξ (ς ,ς ) (12)

M (ς )ς + C (ς ,ς )ς + D (ς ,ς )ς + G (ς ) =  +  dis (10) Differentiating (12) with respect to time gives

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 z = − L ⋅ z + L(− τ − ξ (ς ,ς ))
where, L, is the observer gain matrix and ξ (ς ,ς ) = ας , is the
disturbance observer auxiliary matrix ( α is a positive
constant). The disturbance vector can hence be estimated as
τˆ dis = z + ξ (ς ,ς )
Terminal Sliding Mode Control: The modified sliding mode
surface for thee control scheme is given by
s = ς~ + γς~ β
where ς~ = ςd − ς and ς~ = ς d − ς are the errors in joint
velocities and joint positions respectively. The control vector
for determining the input torques is given by
(
τ = M (ς ) ςd + K s s β
)− τˆdis
where β is a positive proportional constant ( 0 < β < 1 )
which has been used to provide the non-linearity required in
the sliding surface which in turn will ensure a finite time
convergence. Here γ and K s are the gain values which are to be
tuned to ensure faster convergence. When s → 0 , then the
actual joint velocities and positions converge to the desired
values as ς → ςd and ς → ς d resulting in the state equilibrium
of the system.
IV. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
The performance of the system is gauged by performing
extensive numerical simulations involving positioning and
trajectory tracking of the end effector. The simulations have
been run on the manipulator using the passive parameters
presented in Table 1. The shape of the links have been
assumed to be cylindrical though the performance of the
control scheme is least affected by it as it would accommodate
these variations with ease. The control is essentially a joint
space control wherein the desired task space parameters are
transformed to joint space parameters using the inverse
kinematic solution which has been established in the Section
2. The gain values which have been used for the proposed
controller are given Table 2.
TABLE II. PRE-DEFINED PARAMETERS FOR THE CONTROLLER
Parameters Values assigned
Ks 10
L 0.1M (ς )
α 2
β 0.75
(13)
The inertial parameters of the links have been found from
the solid model of the manipulator and hence emulate the
actual parameters. The efficiency of the control scheme is
portrayed here using a few tracking and positioning tasks the
details of which are given below.
Description of the task: The effectiveness of the manipulator
(13) is validated by comparing its performance with conventional z = − L ⋅ z
control schemes namely – a PID controller and a sliding mode
control without disturbance compensation – with the proposed
control scheme which is a terminal sliding mode control
coupled with a disturbance observer. Since the main
applications involve positioning and trajectory tracking for
(14)
pick and place operations, the manipulator is subject to a
simple positioning task where it is instructed to move to a
predefined position starting from its initial position and a
trajectory tracking application where it is commanded to track
a circular trajectory in space the details of which Table 4.
As explained above the proposed control scheme is
(15) compared with a traditional PID controller and a SMC without
disturbance compensation. The control scheme of both are
elucidated below.
τ = §¨ K Pς~ + K I ς~dt + K Dς~ ·¸ + G (τ )
PID with gravity (16)
© ³ ¹
§s· SMC (17)
τ = K s s + K sat sat ¨¨ ¸¸
©φ ¹
where K P , K I and K D are the proportional, integral and
derivative gains of the PID controller and s is the sliding
vector used in sliding mode control. The gain values have
been tuned in such a way that all these controllers show
satisfactory performance in ideal conditions and hence can be
compared with the proposed controller to estimate its
performance. The underwater effects that are bound to act on
the manipulator – such as the underwater currents, damping
effects, etc. – have been included in the disturbance vector
which has been exclusively appended to the system to
simulate the underwater conditions that the manipulator will
be subjected to while performing any of the positioning or
tracking operations.
A. Task 1: The positioning capabilities of the manipulator
are assessed here. The initial and final positions of the
manipulator in terms of their joint space parameters are
given in Table 3. The main motive here is to see the
performance of the control scheme in positioning the end
effector to a pre-defined position starting from any random
position.
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 TABLE III. POSITIONING IN JOINT SPACE The proposed controller on the other hand performs
exceptionally compared to the other two by reaching a steady
Joint space
Initial position Final position state more rapidly. Moreover, the fact to be appreciated is that
parameter
it does so with no or minimal oscillations when compared to
θ1 0.5 Π
2 the PID controller. The main motive behind designing this
θ2 -0.8 Π controller is finite time convergence and the results illustrate
6 the fact this has been achieved without compromising the time
θ3 1.8 Π of settling and simultaneously ensuring the absence of
4
oscillations. The steady state error is noticeable in SMC quite
B. Task 2: The trajectory equation in task space is given in evidently because of its asymptotic convergence characteristic
Table 3. The initial velocity vector of the links is set to and the absence of a disturbance observer.
zero and the trajectory tracking time is to be to 7 seconds.
As can be observed from the equations the radius of the This shows that the disturbance observer coupled with the
circular trajectory has been set to be 0.2m and the proposed controller performs competently as well, as it is able
coordinates of the center point is defined to be (0.3m, to filter out the disturbances, noises and the uncertainties
0.3m, 0.1m). present in the system parameters thus exemplifying the
disturbance compensation capabilities of the controller.
TABLE IV. TRAJECTORY EQATIONS IN TASK SPACE
Task space
Time dependent Trajectory Equation
parameter
x 0.3 + 0.2 sin (0.1t )

y 0.3 + 0.2 cos (0.1t )

z 0.1 + 0.2 sin (0.1t )

Results and Discussion: The results of the positioning and

tracking operations discussed above are discussed and these
can be used as a reference to the performance of the
manipulator and the control scheme in practical circumstances
as the considerations done while performing these simulations
are quite elaborate and they emulate the actual manipulator to
a satisfactory extent. Considerations such as disturbances,
parameter uncertainties and sensor noises have all been
incorporated in the numerical model ensuring the usage of the
proposed controller in an actual prototype without Figure 3. Time trajectory of joint space positioning error in θ1
compromising either performance or effectiveness. As
elucidated above, the comparison between the proposed
controller and a few traditional controllers has been done and
the results are presented here. As anticipated, the PID
controller performs inefficiently in both the cases displaying
sluggish response characteristics and high level of oscillations
before arriving at the steady state. All the results which have
been obtained are depicted in Figs. 3-9.
Figs. 3-5 show the performance of the control scheme in
the positioning task. The figures portray the joint space errors
with respect to time of all the three controllers. It is quite that
the proposed controller outperforms both the other controllers
quite efficiently. One of the crucial observations that need to
be made from these figures is the finite time convergence
exhibited by the proposed control scheme. It should be noted
that though the sliding mode control is fast enough in
converging to a steady state in comparison to the PID
Figure 4. Time trajectory of joint space positioning error in θ 2
controller, the convergence is asymptotic as there is a constant
steady state error which is undesirable in underwater
applications where precision and accuracy are an essentiality. Figs 6-9 illustrate the tracking performance of the
controller while tracking a circular trajectory in space which is
shown in Fig. 6. The tracking performance of the proposed is

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quite acceptable and adequate for underwater applications.
As seen in Fig. 6, the distortions in the trajectory shown by
both the PID controller and the SMC are well beyond the
range of a reasonable performance. But the proposed
controller performs with appreciable effectiveness far
outperforming the other controllers.
Even the sliding mode control scheme – which has always
touted as an efficient scheme in annulling disturbances – fails
to perform under the action of these extensive disturbances as
can be gauged from the figures. The argument that can be
discerned from these figures is that under the action of
disturbances – which include the external disturbances like the
ocean currents and the like – the terminal sliding mode control
has better capabilities in negating these aforementioned
disturbances.
Consequently, it is apparent from the above discussion that
the proposed controller can perform efficiently with reduction
in the torque fluctuations required by the actuators under
identical conditions. The controller is also able to recover from
disturbances, both internal and external while tracing a pre-
defined path. The parameter estimation capability of the
controller is also efficient and the adaptability of the system to
the dynamic changes in the system are remarkable. In all, the
performance of the controller is outstanding, given that it is
able to converge in finite time to the system states even in the
presence of disturbances, uncertainties and noises.

Figure 5. Time trajectory of joint space positioning error in θ 3

In spite of the distortions at initial stages, the controller

responds to the disturbances rapidly and the noises are
alleviated promptly resulting in fast convergence to the desired
trajectory and significant enhancement in performance. The
trajectory shown is the path traced by the end-effector point
and it is evident that the noise mitigation and disturbance
compensation cannot be effectually eliminated by the usage of
the traditional controller. After some initial setbacks, the time
trajectory of the proposed controller converges to the desired
time trajectory with minimal errors.
Figs. 7-9 demonstrate the joint space errors during the Figure 6. Task space coordinates (xyz) of the end effector during the
aforementioned trajectory tracking problem. The most tracking operation.
important point to be noted is that the performance parameters
including but not exclusive of settling time, the maximum
error etc. are satisfactory and adequate in the case of the
proposed controller while the other controllers show
insufficient precision and extended durations to achieve
acceptable conditions. In some cases (see Fig. 7 – PID
performance), the results suggest inaccuracy and unworkable
conditions with the error values going far beyond the
acceptable ranges. Thus, it is evident that the PID controller
and the SMC oscillate and go out of scope of a satisfactory
performance for most of the period of the tracking operation
while the errors in the same parameters are negligible when it
comes to the proposed controller. Another important point to
be noted is that the error always stays well within an
acceptable range for the proposed controller while the errors
go out of scope rapidly and don’t come close to converging for
the entire duration of the operation.
Figure 7. Time trajectory of joint space tracking error in θ1

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Figure 8. Time trajectory of joint space positioning error in θ 2
Figure 9. Time trajectory of joint space positioning error in θ 3
V. CONCLUSION
A robust terminal sliding mode control with a disturbance
observer incorporated is presented here for a standard serial
manipulator to be dispensed for underwater applications. The
efficacy of the controller is demonstrated with the assistance
of numerical simulations and it can be concluded that the
control scheme performs with superior efficiency in the
presence of external disturbances and uncertainties in the
system. The results show the error reduction, adaptive
response and finite time convergence to the system states of
the controller, proving the effectiveness of terminal sliding
mode control and the noise mitigation and disturbance
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compensation capabilities of the disturbance observer
incorporated with the proposed control scheme. This
guarantees the performance of the control scheme for usage in
position and trajectory tracking applications which is the sole
motive behind developing this underwater manipulator.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported under the Korea-India Science
Across Virtual Institute (SAVI) Program managed by National
Research Foundation of Korea and partly supported by the
Human Resources Development program of the Korea Institute
of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) grant
funded by the Korea government Ministry of Trade, Industry
and Energy.
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