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Robot manipulator modeling in Matlab-SimMechanics with PD control and

online gravity compensation

Conference Paper · November 2010

DOI: 10.1109/IFOST.2010.5668085 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Robot manipulator modeling in Matlab-
Simmechanics with PD control and online Gravity
compensation
Le Tien Dung
Graduate School of Electrical Engineering
University of Ulsan
Ulsan, Korea
dung.letien@gmail.com
Abstract — The objective of this article is to present a method to
model the mechanics of robot manipulators. A complete
description of the procedure to model and control a two-link
planar robot arm is detailed and simulated using
Matlab/Simulink from the generation of a mechanical model in
SimMechanics Toolbox. One of the simplest position controllers
for robot manipulators is the PD control with desired gravity
compensation. The implementation of this method was verified
on this model. The results of simulation show that SimMechanics
can be used to model the mechanics of robot and the better
performance can be obtained with the online gravity
compensation method as compared to the case of constant gravity
compensation method.
Keywords: Robotic manipulator; Simulation; Modelling; PD
control; Gravity compensation.
I. INTRODUCTION
The position control of robot manipulators is the simplest
aim in robot control, at the same times, it is one of the most
relevant issues in practical manipulators. Many approaches
have been introduced to treat this control problem. It is well
known that a rigid robot arm can be globally asymptotically
stabilized around a given joint configuration via a PD
controller on the joint errors, provided that gravity is cancelled
by feedback. Under a mild condition on the proportional gain,
this scheme can be simplified by performing only constant
gravity compensation at the desired configuration [1].
This paper presents a case study which has been done by
Sciavicco and Siciliano [2], where a nonlinear gravity
compensation term evaluated online at the current
configuration. But here we model the mechanics of robot
manipulator by using SimMechanics Toolbox. The use of
SimMechanics as a tool to model the mechanics of the robot
allows the possibility to verify model-based control algorithm.
The precise mechanical model, as in a real application, is
unknown for the designer so that the ability of the control
algorithm to match the real model can be easily proven. That
would allow the testing of techniques like the dynamic model-
based control but also learning techniques that extract the
model of the plant under consideration.
Hee-Jun Kang, Young-Shick Ro
School of Electrical Engineering
University of Ulsan
Ulsan, Korea
hjkang@ulsan.ac.kr, ysro@uslan.ac.kr
The paper is organized as follow. Section 2 describes the
tasks of building mechanical model of two-link arm using
SimMechanics Toolbox. The Dynamic model of general
industrial robot is recalled, and detailed for two-link planar
robot manipulator. PD control and gravity compensation
method is also reviewed in this section. Section 3 shows the
results of simulation. Finally, section 4 concludes the paper.
II. DESCRIPTION
A. Mechanical Model
The first step is to create a model of a simple two-link
planar arm for testing the control methods. Figure 1 shows the
mechanical model of the two-link planar arm described with
SimMechanics. The model is composed by two revolute joints
and two bodies. The module receives torques as input and
outputs are joint angles, angular velocities, joint torques. The
masses are considered to be concentrated at the end of each
link, to simply the modeling tasks. In SimMechanics this is
realized setting the inertias as ‘zeros(3,3)’, a 3x3 matrix that
defines point masses and defining the Centre of Gravity (CG)
on the edge of each link.
B. Dynamical Model
The dynamic model of a n-joint robot manipulator can be
written in the Lagrangian form as:
M (q )q + C (q, q ) + G (q ) = τ (1)
where q is the joint variable n-vector and τ is the vector of
generalized forces acting on the robot manipulator. M(q) is the
inertia matrix, C ( q, q ) are the Coriolis/centripetal forces, and
G(q) is the gravity vector. In equation (1) we are not taking into
account the friction torques that are always to be found in a real
robot manipulator.
The dynamic model of the two-link planar arm following
(1) is:
⎡τ ⎤
τ = ⎢ 1 ⎥ ; M (q) = ⎡⎢ M 11 (q) M 12 (q) ⎤⎥ ;
⎡q ⎤ ;
q = ⎢ 1⎥
⎣τ 2 ⎦
⎣ q2 ⎦ ⎣ M 21 (q ) M 22 (q )⎦
 ⎡ C ( q , q ) ⎤ ; ⎡ G (q ) ⎤ (2) Sciavicco and Siciliano [2] proposed the PD control with
C (q ) = ⎢ 1 ⎥ G (q) = ⎢ 1 ⎥ online gravity compensation method as:
⎣ C 2 ( q , q ) ⎦ ⎣G2 (q )⎦

Where: τ = K P q~ − K D q + G ( q ) (12)

M 11 (q ) = (m1 + m2 )l12 + m2l22 + 2m2l1l2 cos q2 (3) The different between the control laws (11) and (12) is that
the term G ( qd ) computed off-line in (11) and online in (12).
M 12 ( q ) = M 21 ( q ) = m2l22 + m2l1l2 cos q2 (4)
For proving the globally asymptotically stable, choose the
M 22 (q) = m2l22 (5) following positive definite quadratic form as Lyapunov
function candidate
C1 (q, q ) = −m2l1l2 (2q1q2 + q22 ) sin q2 (6)
1 1 ∀q , q~ ≠ 0
C2 (q, q ) = m2l1l2 q12 sin q2 (7) V (q , q~ ) = q T M (q )q + q~ T K P q~ > 0 (13)
2 2
G1 (q) = (m1 + m2 ) gl1 cos q1 + m2 gl2 cos(q1 + q2 ) (8) An energy-based interpretation of (13) reveals a first term
expressing the system kinetic energy and a second term
G2 (q ) = m2 gl2 cos(q1 + q2 ) (9) expressing the potential energy stored in the system of
equivalent stiffness KP provided by the n position feedback
The term l1 and l2 are the length of links 1 and 2, loops.
respectively and m1 and m2 are their masses. In our example, Differentiating (13) with respect to time, and recalling that
l1 = l2 = 0.5m and m1 = 20kg , m1 = 10kg . qd is constant, yields:
1
C. PD control with online gravity compensation V = q T M (q )q + q T M (q)q − q T K P q~ (14)
2
Let a constant equilibrium posture be assigned for the
system as the vector of desired joint variables qd . It is desired Solving (1) for M ( q ) q and substituting it in (14) gives:
to find the structure of the controller which ensures global 1 (15)
V = q T ( M (q) − 2C (q, q ))q + q T (τ − G (q ) − K P q~ )
asymptotic stability of the above posture. 2
~T q T
Take the vector q [ ]
T
as the system state, where: The first term on the right-hand side is null because of the
skew-symmetry of matrix N = M − 2C . Then, the choice of
q~ = qd − q (10) controller (12) gives:

The PD control with constant gravity compensation in V = −q T K D q (16)

(Tomei, 1991) is express as According to the above, the function candidate V decreases

Figure 1. Mechanical model of robot in SimMechanics

τ = K P q~ − K D q + G(qd ) (11) as long as q ≠ 0 for all system trajectories. It can be shown

that the system reaches an equilibrium posture when q ≡ 0
Where K P > 0 and K D > 0 are both symmetric and
and q~ = qd − q ≡ 0 . The above rigorously shows that any
typically diagonal matrices.
manipulator equilibrium posture is globally asymptotically
stable under a controller with a PD linear action and a And the results obtained are shown in figures 3 and 4.
nonlinear gravity compensation action. Stability is ensured for Although both controllers achieve the correct steady-state
any choice of KP and KD, as long as these are positive definite position, the transient with the online gravity compensation is
matrices. faster than with the constant gravity compensation. This is
Link 1 Torque
III. RESULTS 600

500
Figure 2 shows the complete Matlab model of the control 400
system. It includes the mechanical model and the PD controller 300

Torque [Nm]
with gravity compensation. 200

100

-100

-200
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

Link 2 Torque
200

150

100

Torque [Nm]
50

Figure 2. Complete control system modelled with

-50
Matlab/Simulink
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

Simulation tests have been carried out in order to measure Figure 4. Motor torques in the test 1 with online (solid) and
constant (dashed) gravity compensation
dynamic performance of the PD controller with online vs.
constant gravity compensation.
achieved at the cost of just slightly higher motor torques at the
Link 1 position start of motion.
2

The test 2 was done with the inverse requested motion,

from qi = [π / 2 π / 6]T rad to qd = [0 0] , differences in
1.5 T
Angle [rad]

1 behavior are less evident. After extensive simulations, it has

been observed in general that, for a given set of gains, transient
0.5
performance with the online gravity compensation scheme is
0
usually better than with constant gravity compensation.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s]

Link 2 position
IV. CONCLUSIONS
0.7
This paper describes the process of modeling a simple robot
0.6
manipulator using PD control with online gravity
0.5
compensation method. The use of SimMechanics as a tool to
Angle [rad]

0.4
model the mechanics of the robot allows the possibility to
0.3
verify model, as in real application, is unknown for the
0.2
designer so that the ability of the control method to match the
0.1
real model can be easily proven. That would allow the testing
0
0
Figure1 2
3. Link 3 4
positions the5 (s)
in Time test 16 with online
7 8
(solid)9 and 10
of techniques like the dynamic model-based control but also
constant (dashed) gravity compensation learning techniques that extract the model of the plant under
consideration.

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The test 1 was done with a step change of the link positions
from the initial configuration qi = [0 0]T to the desired The authors would like to express financial supports from
Ministry of Knowledge Economy under Human Resources
configuration qd = [π / 2 π / 6]T rad. The robot is initially in an Development Program for Convergence Robot Specialists.
equilibrium state, under the action of the control torque
τ = G (qi ) . The gains of both controllers in (11) and (12) are
set to:
K P = diag{260,260} , K D = diag{80,80}
 REFERENCES [4] John J. Craig, Introduction to Robotics Mechanics and control,
third edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.
[1] P. Tomei: “Adaptive PD controller for robot manipulators”,
[5] Krzysztof Kozlowski, Modelling and Identification in robotics,
IEEE Trans. Robotics Automat., Vol. 7, pp. 565-570,1991.
Springer – London, 1998.
[2] L. Sciavicco, B. Siciliano, Modelling and control of robot
manipulators (2nd ed.), London: Springer.
[3] Rafael Kelly: “PD Control with Desired Gravity Compensation of
Robotic Manipulator: A Review”, The International Journal of
Robotics Research 1997; 16; 660.

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