Journal of Control and Decision

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/tjcd20

Fractional synergetic tracking control for robot

manipulator

Asma Saif, Raouf Fareh, Saif Sinan & Maamar Bettayeb

To cite this article: Asma Saif, Raouf Fareh, Saif Sinan & Maamar Bettayeb (2024) Fractional
synergetic tracking control for robot manipulator, Journal of Control and Decision, 11:1,
139-152, DOI: 10.1080/23307706.2022.2146008

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23307706.2022.2146008

Published online: 21 Nov 2022.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 182

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 3 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tjcd20
JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION
2024, VOL. 11, NO. 1, 139–152
https://doi.org/10.1080/23307706.2022.2146008

Fractional synergetic tracking control for robot manipulator

Asma Saifa , Raouf Fareha , Saif Sinana,b and Maamar Bettayeba,c
a Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE; b Department of Electrical Engineering, École de technologie
supérieure, Montreal, Canada; c CEIES, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This work takes advantage of synergetic control theory and fractional calculus to develop and Received 10 January 2022
propose fractional synergetic control (FSC) strategy for Four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) robot Accepted 7 November 2022
manipulator. The proposed fractional synergetic control is designed to track a joint space as well KEYWORDS
as workspace desired trajectories. Fractional calculus gives more flexibility in the design since Synergetic control; robust
it has a wider stability region. Added to that, as stated in the literature, compared to a similar control; robot manipulator;
approach such as sliding mode control, the synergetic control approach converges faster to the fractional controller
equilibrium point, without chattering with a fast response. This paper proposes a new control
strategy that takes advantage of fractional calculus and synergetic control theory. This proposed
control strategy is tested experimentally on a 4-DOF manipulator to study the performance of the
proposed control scheme. The stability of the closed-loop system is proved using the Lyapunov
approach. The experimental results have shown that the proposed FSC design has achieved a
good tracking performance.

1. Introduction
Recently, robot manipulators have become a desir-
able topic for researchers and developers, where they
are capable of carrying out many different and repet-
itive tasks with high speed and precision. Moreover,
they play a great role in various fields such as edu-
cation, industries, medical applications and perform-
ing dangerous operations that pose a risk for human
workers. Controlling the motion for these types of
nonlinear systems with different complexities is con-
sidered a challenging task for researchers. In addi-
tion, several aspects cause difficulties in controlling the
robot, such as external disturbances in the workspace
and time-varying. Many researchers proposed different
control techniques for tracking control problems. There
are popular techniques such as; Proportional Integral
Derivative (PID) (Cervantes & Alvarez-Ramirez, 2001),
Computed Torque Chen et al. (2012), Neural net-
work (Commuri et al., 1997) Adaptive Neural net-
work (Shuzhi et al., 1997) distributed control (Fareh
et al., 2016), Sliding mode control (SMC) (Dumlu
& Yıldırım, 2018) and Active Disturbance Rejection
Control (ADRC) (Fareh et al., 2020).
However, these control techniques have their advan-
tages and disadvantages. For example, the PID con-
trol technique has a drawback in controlling com-
plex electro-mechanical systems like robots (Sankaran,
1999). In the computed torque technique, it is hard to
obtain a good performance in high-speed operation
(Lewis et al., 2003). SMC technique suffers from the
chattering phenomena (Lee & Utkin, 2007), due to the
discontinuous control actions in finite time. SMC has
common properties with synergetic control where both
techniques are similar in forcing the system trajectories
to reach the manifold and stay on it. However, there
is a main difference in the way of directing the sys-
tem trajectories, SMC makes an undesirable noise in
the system which is known as chattering. Whereas, in
synergetic control, this issue is solved since the system
trajectories reach the manifold asymptotically without
causing any noise with a constant switching frequency
(Santi et al., 2004). In addition, the factor for the speed
rate of convergence toward the manifold in synergetic
control can be controlled by choosing an appropriate
positive definite matrix. While in SMC, the speed rate of
convergence depends on system dynamics and cannot
be controlled (Ahifar et al., 2018; Santi et al., 2004).
The authors in Ahifar et al. (2018) proposed a termi-
nal synergetic control for robot manipulator and prove
that this designed controller provides a fast and pre-
cise convergence compared to a similar approach such
as a terminal sliding mode controller. Hence synergetic
control technique is considered as an improved version
of SMC. Synergetic control has been recently adopted
for robotic systems mainly for robot manipulators. An
adaptive Finite Integral Non-singular Terminal Syner-
getic Control technique has been proposed in Wang
et al. (2016) for robot manipulators to solve the sin-
gularity and the chattering in the control signal. To
improve the performance of the proposed controller, a

CONTACT Raouf Fareh rfareh@sharjah.ac.ae W9-227 University of Sharjah, 27272 Sharjah, UAE

© 2022 Northeastern University, China

140 A. SAIF ET AL.
type-2 fuzzy logic controller has been combined with
the synergetic controller. In Humaidi et al. (2020), the
authors propose a control strategy based on the con-
cept of synergetic control theory to control a single link
robot actuated Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) in
opposing bicep/tricep positions. Although there are
many advantages of the synergetic control technique,
it has some drawbacks such as the requirement of the
complete system model for the controlled system, and
it can be affected by system uncertainties and external
disturbances (Liu & Hsiao, 2012). Thus, fractional cal-
culus is used in this work to improve the performance
of the conventional synergetic control strategy.
Real objects and dynamic systems usually tend
to be fractional (Chen et al., 2009). Hence, frac-
tional calculus allows describing these systems more
accurately than non-fractional calculus ‘integer-order’.
Using non-fractional calculus was the gap in the solu-
tion methods of fractional differential equations. Frac-
tional calculus has been known for over three centuries
since L’Hopital and Leibniz first mentioned derivative
of order n = 12 in 1695 (Loverro, 2004). In recent years,
fractional-order dynamic systems have attracted much
attention from scientists and engineers where dynam-
ics and behaviours of real systems are defined more
precisely while using fractional order format. Presently,
there are a lot of approximation methods for the solu-
tion of fractional derivatives and integrals. Numeri-
cal simulation for fractional-order differential equa-
tions cannot be exactly implemented as in the case of
ordinary differential equations. Since the exact analyt-
ical solutions are hard to implement, there are several
numerical approximations techniques proposed by the
researchers such as Charef’s method (Charef, 2006)
and Oustaloup’s method (Sabatier et al., 2002). There
are many different forms of fractional differintegral in
the literature, the most popular and frequently used
are Grunwald-Letnikov (GL) definition, the Riemann-
Liouville (RL) and the Caputo definitions (Lazare-
vić, 2015). Currently, fractional calculus is consid-
ered as a trend in control engineering for modelling
and control design. In 1994, I. Podlubny presented
the fractional PID controller (Podlubny, 1994). Many
researchers have used fractional calculus with several
control techniques to improve the performance of the
control strategy. Existing studies have shown that frac-
tional order controller outperformed integer order con-
troller (Chen et al., 2009).
Fractional order PID has been widely used for
robotic systems, in Angel and Viola (2018), the authors
have combined Fractional PID with computed torque
control to solve the problem of tracking control of par-
allel robot manipulator. Compared to the integer-order
PID, the fractional version has shown better perfor-
mance in tracking and disturbances rejection. Addi-
tionally, the fractional control warranties iso-damping
property and therefore is robust to open-loop gain vari-
ation (Shah & Agashe, 2016). The authors in Sharma
et al. (2015), studied the performance of fractional PID
on 2-DOF robot manipulators. The results have con-
firmed that the fractional PID is more robust than the
integer and traditional PID when the robot is subject
to external disturbance and random noise as well as
time-variation payload conditions. A Fractional order
control has been developed in Chhabra et al. (2016),
to precisely and closely track the desired trajectory
with minimum control effort. Multi-objective particle
swarm optimisation (MOPSO) has been adopted to
tune and optimise the FPID parameters. Compared to
the integer PID, the fractional PID has shown better
robustness towards parameter uncertainties and trajec-
tory tracking.
More advance fractional controllers have been
applied to robot manipulators. A Fractional-Order
Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode has been proposed
in Wang et al. (2016) for the tracking problem of robot
manipulators. The proposed control strategy does not
require detailed information about the robot. Com-
pared to the integer-order Nonsingular Terminal Slid-
ing Mode, The experimental results have shown that
the fractional version can ensure faster convergence
with less tracking error. A fractional-order adaptive
backstepping control has been developed in Nikdel
et al. (2016) to solve the control and finite-time sta-
bilisation of robot manipulators. This work aims to
improve the response characteristics of the robot in
the presence of model uncertainties and nonlineari-
ties as well as external disturbances. The comparison
between the non-adaptive version shows that the pro-
posed method provides better experimental results in
terms of trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection.
A fractional-order position/force hybrid control strat-
egy has been adopted in Machado and Azenha (1998)
to control a robot manipulator. The authors studied the
controller’s performance in the time and the frequency
domain with the effect of the dynamic backslash and
flexibility.
In Ni et al. (2017), fractional-order fixed time non-
singular terminal sliding mode control is proposed for
stabilisation and synchronisation of fractional-order
chaotic systems with uncertainties and disturbances.
Their method achieved chaos synchronisation and sup-
pressed chaotic oscillation in a fractional-order power
system within a fixed time. A fractional nonlinear syn-
ergetic controller was developed by Ardjal et al. (2019)
for controlling a generator and grid converters of a
wind energy conversion system. The results confirm the
proposed control scheme’s excellent performance and
ensure the closed-loop system’s stability. The authors
in Djennoune and Bettayeb (2013) presented nonlinear
and linear fractional-order controllers based on syn-
ergetic control theory. They defined a macro-variable

by a fractional-order integral of state variables. Opti-
mality and stability properties were analysed. Moreover,
the simulation results showed a good performance of
the developed fractional synergetic control. In Mehiri
et al. (2019), fractional nonlinear synergetic control
was applied to control the three-phase Inverter grid-
connected PV system. They compared their simulation
results with other controllers like SMC and PI, and the
proposed control scheme gave the best performance
among the other controllers. In Ardjal et al. (2019)
the authors presented a new design of fractional non-
linear synergetic controller for a wind energy conver-
sion system with variable speed, to achieve maximum
power point tracking (MPPT). They compared the sim-
ulation results to conventional synergetic controller
results, and concluded that, the fractional nonlinear
synergetic controller had improved the performance.
Various applications of fractional order PID controller
in mechanical and robotics systems are reviewed in
Sondhi and Hote (2012).
All the stated works by Sondhi and Hote (2012)
showed that the performance of the fractional-order
PID controller has better robustness and improved
the disturbance rejection with minimisation of the
steady-state error compared to conventional PID con-
troller. The authors in Fareh et al. (2020) construct
a smooth synergetic controller design using a man-
ifold with nonlinear and exponential terms to con-
trol the 4-DOF robot manipulator. Based on their
experimental work, the proposed synergetic controller
achieved good tracking in finite time and minimal
steady-state error without chattering phenomena. In
Liu and Hsiao (2012), a finite time synergetic control
scheme is proposed to track a class of nonlinear sys-
tems. The proposed control scheme was applied to the
2-DOF robot manipulator and the simulation results
showed the validity of their proposed scheme.
The work of synergetic control theory and fractional
calculus in the robotics field is still elementary and
there are a lot of possible developments. Moreover, the
fractional-order synergetic control topic is not yet well
covered for robotics applications. This paper’s main
contribution is to implement and develop a fractional
synergetic controller to track the desired path trajec-
tory in joint space and workspace for a 4-DOF robotic
arm. This work aims to take advantage of the frac-
tional control ( (((( combined with the smooth
robustness
convergence of the synergetic control to design a new
fractional synergetic controller to solve the tracking
problem control of the robot manipulator. The track-
ing trajectory is considered in the joint space as well
as workspace. The inverse kinematic is used to obtain
the desired joint space trajectories from the desired
workspace trajectories. The point is to show the perfor-
mance of the proposed fractional synergetic controller
to distinguish the use of the fractional calculus method
and highlight the importance of fractional order control
JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 141
combined with synergetic control in robotics. The Lya-
punov stability approach proves the stability analysis for
the obtained control law. Non-fractional and fractional
synergetic controllers are applied experimentally on a
4-DOF robot manipulator to show the effectiveness and
feasibility of the proposed fractional synergetic control
strategy.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows: Section
2 describes the model of the 4-DOF robot under study
in this work. A brief background of fractional calculus
integration and differentiation and synergetic control
theory are given in Section 3. Section 4 presents the
mathematical formulation of the proposed fractional
synergetic control schemes followed by the experimen-
tal results in Section 5. Finally, and the conclusion is
given in Section 6.
2. Modeling and system description
In this work, 4-DOF robotic arm manipulator is used.
This robotic arm is an open-source platform where it
can be used to test and study control theories of the
robot. The robotic arm is composed of four lightweight
serial links with four revolute joints and two fingers
end-effector. The robot can be controlled in three-
dimensional space and operate to grasp or release
objects with two fingers. Figure 1 shows the architecture
of the 4-DOF robotic arm.
Kinematics is a mathematical formulation of the
movement between rigid object and end-effector,
regardless to the forces that cause the motion. The
inverse kinematics is a mathematical representation for
unknown joint angles that reflect the position of the
robot’s end-effector. At the same time, forward kine-
matics is used to describe the relationship between
the position of the end-effector and the known joint
angles. The Denavit Hartenberg notation (standard DH
parameters) has been used to represent the robot’s
frames
A homogeneous transformation matrix is used to
represent the forward kinematics of the robot as follow:
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
x (−c1 c2 s3 − c1 c3 s2)L34 + c1 c2 L2
⎣y⎦ = ⎣ (−c2 s1 s3 − c3 s1 s1)L34 + s1 c2 L2 ⎦
z (−c2 c3 − s2 s3)L34 − s2 L2 + L1
(1)
where si is sin qi , ci is cos qi and Li is the arm length.
Using a geometric solution in addition to know-
ing the position of the end-effector, the unknown joint
angles can be found by applying inverse kinematics.
One solution can be as follow:
⎡ ⎤
q1
⎣q2 ⎦
q3
142 A. SAIF ET AL.

Figure 1. 4-DOF robotic arm.

⎡ y ⎤
tan−1 robot, C(q, q̇) is Centrifugal n × 1 vector and G(q) is the
⎢ x ⎥ gravity n × 1 vector, where n is the number of freedom
⎢ −(α + ϕ) ⎥
⎢ ⎛ 2 2 − (x2 + y2 ⎞⎥
⎥ degrees of the manipulator. τ is n × 1 the input torque
⎢ L + (L + L )
=⎢ 2 3 4 ⎥ (2) vector. The overview of tracking control for 4-DOF
⎢ ⎜ +(z − L )2) ⎟ ⎥
⎢sin−1 ⎜ 1
⎟⎥ robotic arm is illustrated in Figure 2.
⎣ ⎝ 2L (L ) ⎠⎦
2 34

3. Background
R +L −L
2 2 2
where α = tan−1 √z−L 1
; ϕ = cos−1 2L22 R 34 ; R =
x2 +y2 This section is divided into two subsections. The first

r2 + (z − L1 )2 and r = L2 c2 − L34 s23 . Note that q4 subsection presents a brief background of fractional
is independent of the end-effector, it only effecting the calculus integration and differentiation. The second
orientation of it. subsection introduces the principle of synergetic con-
Dynamic modelling is known to define the math- trol theory.
ematical relationship between the motion of each
joint and its corresponding needed torque. Using the
Lagrange approach, the torque equation is derived, and 3.1. Fractional calculus integration and
the dynamic model equation is formed as follows: differentiation

M(q)q̈ + C(q, q̇) + G(q) = τ (3) After L’Hopital’s and Leibniz’s first reference, fractional
calculus, has been studied by several scientists. In 1823,
where q and q̇ ∈ Rn×1 are joint angle and velocity the first application of fractional calculus was intro-
respectively, M(q) is the n × n inertia matrix of the duced by N. Abel for solving the tautochrone problem

Figure 2. The overview of tracking fractional synergetic control for 4-DOF robotic arm.

using integral of order n = 12 (Monje et al., 2010). For
control systems, the usage of fractional calculus started
in 1990 when M. Axtell used Laplace transforms for
different integral operators (Axtell & Bise, 1990). In
literature, there are many definitions of fractional calcu-
lus, the most commonly encountered in the area of the
control system are Grunwald-Letnikov (GL) definition,
the Riemann-Liouville (RL) and the Caputo defini-
tions (Lazarević, 2015; Shah & Agashe, 2016). The most
widely used is Riemann-Liouville’s (RL) definition and
considered as a general definition of fractional differin-
tegral. The RL definition can be given as follow:
The αth-order Riemann–Liouville fractional deriva-
tive is given by Ardjal et al. (2019):
α dα f (t)
t0 Dt f (t) =
dt α

1 dm t f (τ )
= dτ (4)
(m − α) dt t0 (t − τ )α−m+1
m ψ̇ is the derivative of the aggregated macro-variable.
where m is considerd as any integer, α ∈ + is the
fractional order of the derivative, where m − 1 < α ≤
m,  is Euler’s Gamma function and t0 is the initial
time. Then, the initial time is taken as zero. The Euler’s
Gamma function is defined as:
 ∞
(α) = e−t t α−1 dt (5)
0 4. The mathematical formulation of the
The definition of the fractional order integral α ∈ +
of Riemann–Liouville is (Ardjal et al., 2019):
 of the non-fractional synergetic control and fractional
α 1 t f (τ )
t0 It f (t) = dτ
(α) t0 (t − τ )1−α
In this work, fractional order integration and dif-
ferentiation will be used for developing a synergetic
control scheme to be applied on 4-DOF robot manipu-
lator.
3.2. Synergetic control theaory
The synergetic control theory is related to the Analyti-
cal Design of Aggregated Regulator (ADAR)
(Kolesnikov et al., 2000). The following nonlinear
dynamical system presents the synergetic control the-
ory:
dx(t)
= f (x, u, t)
dt
The basic concepts of synergetic control will be given
here. Consider a class of nonlinear systems as follows:
ẍ = f (x) + g(x)u
where x ∈ f (x) ∈
Rn×1 , and g(x) ∈
Rn×1 are
known nonliear functions. u ∈ R m×1 is the input con-
trol signal.
JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 143
The designing procedure of the synergetic controller
starts from choosing a specific user-defined function
called macro-variable ψ(x), Based on the selected
macro-variable, a manifold M will be constructed to
direct the system states to reach the zero exponentially
and asymptotically where ψ(x) = 0. The manifold M is
defined as follows:
M = {x(t) : ψ(x) = 0, ψ(x) ∈ m×1 } (9)
The synergetic controller design will move the sys-
tem states to reach a manifold exponentially by follow-
ing the desired dynamic of the macro-variable which is
called evolution constraint and it is given as:
β ψ̇ + ψ = 0 (10)
where β is a design parameter defined as a non-singular
diagonal positive definite matrix that affects the conver-
gence rate of macro-variable to the desired manifold.
The stability of the closed-loop system can be proved
by using the Lyapunov approach:
V = 12 ψ T ψ (11)
Finally, the control law is developed so that the closed-
loop system is asymptotically stable (V̇ < 0).
proposed synergetic controller
This section presents the mathematical formulation
synergetic controller, where both will operate a 4-DOF
(6)
robot manipulator. To get the form of multivariable
nonlinear system of Equation (8), The dynamic model
Equation (3) of the robot manipulator is rearranged as
a second-order system as:
Më − C − G − M q¨d = −τ (12)
where qd ∈ nx1 is the reference input of the desired
trajectories for robot manipulator. The tracking error in
joint space and its derivatives are defined as e = qd − q,
ė = q̇d − q̇ and ë = q̈d − q̈.
In terms of tracking error, the model dynamic in
Equation (12) can be written as follow:
ë = M −1 C + M −1 G + q̈d − M −1 τ (13)
Let us define the state variables as x1 = e and x2 =
(7) ė, the state space model can derived as second order
system:

ẋ1 = f1 (x, ẋ) + g1 (x)
(14)
ẋ2 = f2 (x, ẋ) + g2 (x)u
(8)
where x = [x1 x2 ]T ; f (x, ẋ) = [f1 f2 ]T , f1 = x2 , f2 =
Rn×m M −1 C + M −1 G + q¨d and g(x) = [g1 g2 ]T ,
g1 = 0, g2 = −M −1 are nonlinear function. u = τ is
input control.
144 A. SAIF ET AL.

4.1. Non-fractional synergetic control V̇ = ψ T (kp ė + kd ë)

As mentioned in the previous section, the first step in
designing a synergetic controller is defining a macro-
variable. In this paper, the first macro-variable to be
developed for controlling 4-DOF robot manipulator is
selected as follows:
ψ = kp e + kd ė
where kp and kd ∈ n×n are diagonal positive definite
matrices. Using Equation (15), Equation (10) becomes:
βkp ė + βkd ë + kp e + kd ė = 0
Using Equation (14), the error dynamics Equation (16)
becomes:
βkp ė + βkd (M −1 C + M −1 G + q¨d )
+ βkd (−M −1 )u + kp e + kd ė = 0
Let us now propose the following control law:
τ = Mk−1 −1 −1
d β kp e + Mβ ė
+ Mk−1
d kp ė + C + G + M q¨d
The block diagram of the control law in
Equation (18) is shown in Figure 3
The error dynamics are found by substituting the
control low in Equation (18) in the modified dynamic
model from Equation (13):
V̇ = ψ T [kp ė + kd M −1 C + kd M −1 G + kd q¨d
− kd M −1 (Mk−1
d kp ė + C + G + M q¨d
+ Mk−1 −1 −1
d β kp e + Mβ ė)]
V̇ = ψ T [kp ė + kd M −1 C + kd M −1 G + kd q¨d
(15)
− kp ė − kd M −1 C − kd M −1 G
− kd q¨d − β −1 kp e − kd β −1 ė]
V̇ = ψ T [−β −1 kp e − kd β −1 ė]
(16)
V̇ = −ψ T β −1 [kp e + kd ė]
V̇ = −ψ T β −1 ψ (20)
From the above, V is a positive definite function and the
time derivative V̇ is negative as long as β > 0. Hence,
(17) the stability of the controlled system is guaranteed. The
macro variable given in Equation (15) depends on the
tracking error and its derivative. The Lyapunov func-
tion V(t) is a continuous function of ψ.Its derivative
V̇(t) is nonincreasing in time t. Then, we can conclude
(18) that the macro-variable ψ(t) ∈ L∞ . Therefore, from
Equation (15), the error e(t) ∈ L∞ . The second deriva-
tive of the Lyapunov function V̈ (t) = −2ψ T β −1 ψ̇
is bounded. So, according to Barbalat’s Lemma (Slo-
tine & Li, 1991), V̇ and ψ → 0 as t → ∞. Therefore,
e and ė → 0 as t → ∞.

ë + β −1 ė + k−1 −1 −1
d kp ė + kd β kp e = 0 (19) 4.2. Fractional synergetic control
To prove the stability of the closed-loop system, let us The main contribution of this work is to apply a frac-
use the following positive Lyapunov function: tional synergetic control for a 4-DOF robot manipula-
tor to have more flexibility in the design, whereas the
V = 12 ψ T ψ
stability of an integer order linear time-invariant (LTI)
The time derivative of the Lyapunov function is given system is ensured if all the roots are in the left half com-
as follows: plex plane. While for fractional-order LTI system, the
roots may occur in the right half complex plane and
V̇ = ψ T ψ̇ the system is still stable (Mehiri et al., 2019). Based on

Figure 3. Non-Fractional Synergetic control scheme.

 JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 145

synergetic control design, a fractional macro-variable is + Mβ −1 ė

proposed as follows:
+ Mk−1 −1
d kp ė + Mkd ki D
1−α
e + C + G + M q¨d )]
ψ = kp e + ki I α e + kd ė (21) V̇ = ψ T [kp ė + ki D1−α e + kd M −1 C + kd M −1 G
1−α
ψ̇ = kp ė + ki D e + kd ë (22) + kd q¨d − ki D1−α e
where kp , ki and kd ∈ n×n are diagonal positive defi- − kp ė − kd M −1 C − kd M −1 G − kd q¨d − β −1 kp e
nite matrices. I stands for the fractional integral param-
− β −1 ki I α e − β −1 kd ė]
eter and α is the value of fractional order m − 1 < α ≤
m. Let us propose the following control law: V̇ = ψ T [−β −1 kp e − β −1 ki I α e − kd β −1 ė]

τ = Mk−1 −1 −1 −1 α V̇ = −ψ T β −1 [kp e + kI I α e + kD ė] (25)

d β kp e + Mkd β ki I e
+ Mβ −1 ė + Mk−1 −1
d kp ė + Mkd ki D
1−α
e
V̇ = −ψ T β −1 ψ
+ C + G + M q¨d (23)
From Equation (25), the time derivative V̇ is negative.
Figure 4 illustrates the control law scheme for the pro- Hence, the closed-loop system is asymptotically stable.
posed fractional controller. Moreover, let us check the evolution constraint
The error dynamics is obtained by inserting the con- Equation (10) when using the proposed control strategy
trol law Equation (23) in the modified dynamic model Equation (23):
Equation (13) and given as follow:
β(kp ė + ki D1−α e + kd ë) + (kp e + ki I α e + kd ė) = 0
ë + β −1 ė + k−1 −1 −1 −1 α
d β kD kp e + kd β ki I e βkp ė + βki D1−α e + βkd ë + kp e + ki I α e + kd ė = 0
+ k−1 −1
d kp ė + kd ki D
1−α
e=0 (24) βkp ė + βki D1−α e + βkd (M −1 C

To prove the stability of the error dynamics let us + M −1 G + q̈d − M −1 τ )

propose the following positive Lyapunov function in + kp e + ki I α e + kd ė = 0
Equation (11):
βkp ė + βki D1−α e + βkd M −1 C + βkd M −1 G
1 T
V= 2ψ ψ
+ βkd q̈d − βkd M −1 τ
The time derivative of V is:
+ kp e + ki I α e + kd ė = 0
V̇ = ψ T ψ̇ βkp ė + βki D1−α e + βkd M −1 C
V̇ = ψ T (kp ė + ki D1−α e + kd ë) + βkd M −1 G + βkd q̈d
V̇ = ψ T [kp ė + ki D1−α e + kd M −1 C − kp e − ki I α e − kd ė − βkp ė − βki D1−α e
+ kd M −1 G + kd q¨d − βkd M −1 C − βkd M −1 G − βkd q̈d
− kd M −1 (Mk−1 −1 −1 −1 α
d β kp e + Mkd β ki I e + kp e + ki I α e + kd ė = 0 (26)

Figure 4. Fractional Synergetic control scheme.

146 A. SAIF ET AL.
From Equation (26), the proposed control law satis-
fied the evolution constraint β ψ̇ + ψ = 0. i.e. this con-
troller is able to move the system states to reach a man-
ifold exponentially by following the desired dynamic of
the macro-variable.
5. Experimental results
To verify the validity of the performance for the pro-
posed control law, a real robot of 4-DOF is used. The
experimental work was carried out by using QUARC,
which is
open platform source and Matlab/Simulink. A data
acquisition card (DAQ) is used to communicate
between the robot and Simulink software. The DAQ
reads the torque signals from the fractional syner-
getic controller as an input for the robot and writes
the real-time angles and velocity signals from the sen-
sors as an input for the fractional synergetic controller
in Simulink. The desired workspace trajectories are
defined in Matlab as a circular path. Then, inverse
kinematics is used to calculate desired joint space tra-
jectories which will be considered as the reference
angles in joint space. The sensors will measure the real
actual angles in real joint space and send it back to
Figure 5. Experimental setup.
Figure 6. Real-time experimental setup.
the fractional synergetic controller in Simulink through
DAQ. The fractional synergetic controller will use the
difference (error) between the desired and actual angles
to generate the torque signals as input for the robot.
The nominal values for the acurators toqures usined in
the robot are in Campeau-Lecours et al. (2019). Finally,
forward kinematics convert the real joint space angles
to real workspace angles. Figures 5 and 6 illustrates the
experimental setup.
To implement a fractional-order synergetic con-
troller, the FOMCON toolbox is used
(Aleksei et al., 2012; Tepljakov, 2011). It is a MAT-
LAB Toolbox that provides an approximation to the
fractional order differentiation and integration based
on integer transfer functions. The method is devel-
oped based on a mini toolbox FOTF (Chen et al., 2009;
Monje et al., 2010; Xue et al., 2007). The experimen-
tation is carried out to examine the performance of
the proposed fractional synergetic controller on the 4-
DOF robotic arm in comparison to another control
techniques. There control techniques are:
• Fractional PID (Frac-PID).
• Fractional Sliding Mode Control (Farac-SMC).
• Non-fractional Synergetic controller (Synr).

The following parameters are used for the controllers
in this work:
• Frac−PID: kp = 150, ki = 30, kd = 100, λ, μ =
0.95.
• Frac−SMC: kp = 30, kp d = 1, ki = 30 and Ks =
[152, 65, 59, 114] λ = 0.95.
• Synr: β = diag[150, 150, 100, 100], kp = 0.7, ki =
0.6, kd = 0.6.
• Frac−Synr: β = diag[150, 150, 100, 100], kp = 0.7,
ki = 0.6, kd = 0.6 λ = 0.95.
The fractional synergetic control proposed in this
work is based on the conversational version of syner-
getic control. Consequently, it would be convenient to
compare its performance to the fractional conventional
version of SMC. Based on fractional sliding surface
given in Fei et al. (2021), the Control law used for
Frac−SMC is:
S = kp e + ki I α e + kd ė
Ṡ = kp ė + ki D1−α e + kd ë
u = Mk−1 −1 −1
d [Kp ė + Kd M C + Kd M G
+ kd q̈d + ki D1−α e] + Mks sign(S)
The experimental results show that The synergetic
control and fractional synergetic control achieved the
best tracking performance in the joint space as shown
in Figure 7. This is confirmed in the performance index
Table 1. The fractional SMC provides a weak track-
ing performance for the second joint q2 and the third
joint q3 , that is where there is a high change in the
tracking value and SMC could not provide the desired
Figure 7. Joint space tracking for the angular position: (a) first joint (b) the second joint (c) third joint and (d) fourth joint.
JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 147
Table 1. Performance index for the experimental results.
MSE for workspace
Frac-PID 3.6127e-04
Frac-SMC 0.0020
Synr 4.8142e-04
Frac-Synr 3.8373e-04
performance. For the fractional PID, it has a good per-
formance except for the secondq2 . Although the per-
formance index for the fractional PID with respect to
the workspace in Table 1 showed less MSE than frac-
tional synergetic control, it is noticeable that the frac-
tional PID draws the circle far from the desired coor-
dinate unlike fractional synergetic as demonstrated in
Figure 8. Added to that, the difference between the MSE
for both techniques is very small. Regarding the Frac-
tional SMC, the tracking performance for the x was very
weak due to the weak performance in the joint space.
The most significant improvement for the proposed
fractional synergetic control technique can be noticed
with respect to the measurements of the torque (Figures
9–12). Although the same parameters for synergetic
and fractional synergetic were used, but the impact of
using fractional calculus leads to less control inputs
(27) (torques). That is due to the extra degree of freedom
provided by the fractional calculus concept. Finally,
Figure 13 shows a close look (zoom-in) at the mea-
surement of all torques, this demonstrates the smooth
and fewer magnate torques provided by the fractional
synergetic control than all the other techniques in this
experiment.
The experimental results have matched the theoret-
ical part of the fractional synergetic control and proved
the use of fractional calculus concepts. The comparison
148 A. SAIF ET AL.

Figure 8. Circular desired and real path in the workspace.

Figure 9. Measurement for Torque 1 comparing the performance of Fractional synergetic with (a) Fractional PID (b) Fractional SMC
and (c) conventional synergetic.

Figure 10. Measurement for Torque 2 comparing the performance of Fractional synergetic with (a) Fractional PID (b) Fractional SMC
and (c) conventional synergetic.
 JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 149

Figure 11. Measurement for Torque 3 comparing the performance of Fractional synergetic with (a) Fractional PID (b) Fractional SMC
and (c) conventional synergetic.

Figure 12. Measurement for Torque 4 comparing the performance of Fractional synergetic with (a) Fractional PID (b) Fractional SMC
and (c) conventional synergetic.

showed the superiority and the unique feature of the
fractional-order synergetic control, where it enhanced
the performance of the controlled system. Moreover,
having variable derivative and integral orders increases
the design’s flexibility and improves the closed-loop
response.
6. Conclusion
A fractional synergetic controller has been proposed
and implemented experimentally to control a 4-DOF
robotic arm. The controller precisely tracked the joint
space as well as workspace desired trajectories. The con-
trol law has been introduced by using synergetic con-
trol theory and fractional calculus. Inverse kinematics
was used to find the desired trajectories in joint space,
whereas forward kinematics was used to get the real
trajectories in the workspace. The stability of the con-
trolled system was proved using the Lyapunov method.
The comparison between the proposed fractional syn-
ergetic controller and the non-fractional synergetic
controller, fractional sliding mode technique as well
ad fractional PID showed the superiority of the pro-
posed controller. The experimental results confirmed
150 A. SAIF ET AL.
Figure 13. Close look (zoom-in) for the measurement of all Torques at T = 30.
that the proposed fractional synergetic controller could
faster track the desired reference and drive error states
to zero.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Asma Saif received a bachelor and mas-
ter degrees in electrical and electronics
engineering from the University of Shar-
jah in 2016 and 2021 respectively. Her
reseacrh area is in robotics and control
system.
Raouf Fareh received Ph.D. and Master
degrees in electrical engineering from
the University of Quebec (Ecole de Tech-
nologie Superieure) Canada in 2008
and 2013, respectively. He then joined
Ottawa University in 2013 as a postdoc-
toral researcher. He joined the Univer-
sity of Sharjah, UAE, in 2014. Currently,
Dr. Fareh is an Associate Professor at the University of Shar-
jah in 2014, where he is teaching courses related to robotics
and control systems. His research interests include control
and path planning for various types of robotic systems such
as Manipulator, Mobile Robot, Mobile Manipulator, Paral-
lel robot, Exoskeleton Robot, Drones, etc. In control theory,
his research interests include mathematical modelling, Linear
and Nonlinear control such as Active Disturbances Rejec-
tion Control, distributed control, Fractional Control, Sliding
model control, Synergetic control, etc. In addition, He is
working on path planning for robotic systems using vision
and image processing. He is a member of the Autonomous
Robotics and Active Vision Research Group at the University
of Sharjah. He collaborates with Power Electronics and Indus-
trial Control Research Group (GRÉPCI) in ETS, Canada,
as well as BioRobotics Lab at the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee, USA.
Saif Sinan received a bachelor and a
master degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Sharjah in 2013
and 2019 respectively. He started his
PhD at Ecole de technologie superieure
in 2020. His research is in nonlinear con-
trollers, power systems, robotic systems
and nonlinear control and collaboration
of multi robotic systems.
Maamar Bettayeb received the B.S.,
M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electri-
cal Engineering from the University
of Southern California, Los Angeles,
in 1976, 1978 and 1981, respectively.
He worked as a Research Scientist at
the Bellaire Research Center at Shell
Oil Development Company, Houston,
Texas, USA. From 1982 to 1988, He directed the Instru-
mentation and Control Laboratory of High Commission
for Research in Algeria. In 1988, He joined the Electri-
cal Engineering Department at King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He has been
Professor at the University of Sharjah UAE since August
2000. He is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Gradu-
ate Studies at the University of Sharjah, starting September
2014. He is also the Chair of the IT Governance Com-
mittee of University of Sharjah. He has published over
350 journal and conference papers in the fields of con-
trol and signal processing. He has also supervised over 50
M.Sc. and Ph.D. students. He contributed to the design
and development of several curricula for Universities in
the Gulf countries, Asia and Africa. His recent research
interest is in process control, fractional dynamics and con-
trol, soft computing, renewable energies and engineering
education.
 JOURNAL OF CONTROL AND DECISION 151

References Balkan Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

6(4), 211–216. https://doi.org/10.17694/bajece.459568
Ahifar, A., Noee, A. R., & Rahmani, Z. (2018). Termi-
Fareh, R., Al-Shabi, M., Bettayeb, M., & Ghommam,
nal synergetic design of a nonlinear robot manipula-
J. (2020). Robust active disturbance rejection control
tor in the presence of disturbances. COMPEL-The Inter-
for flexible link manipulator. Robotica, 38(1), 118–135.
national Journal for Computation and Mathematics in
https://doi.org/10.1017/S026357471900050X
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 37(1), 208–223.
Fareh, R., Khadraoui, S., & Baziyad, M., et al. (2020). Syner-
https://doi.org/10.1108/COMPEL-11-2016-0490
getic workspace tracking control for 4-DOF robot manip-
Aleksei, T., Eduard, P., & Juri, B. (2012). A flexible matlab tool
ulator. In Proceedings of the 12th international conference
for optimal fractional-order pid controller design subject
on computer and automation engineering (pp. 189–193).
to specifications. In Proceedings of the 31st Chinese control
Fareh, R., Saad, M., Saad, M., & Bettayeb, M. (2016). Track-
conference (pp. 4698–4703). IEEE.
ing trajectory in the workspace of rigid manipulators using
Angel, L., & Viola, J. (2018). Fractional order pid for track-
distributed adaptive control strategy. Advanced Robotics,
ing control of a parallel robotic manipulator type delta. ISA
30(6), 361–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/01691864.2015.
Transactions, 79, 172–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.
1132635
2018.04.010
Fei, J., Wang, Z., Liang, X., Feng, Z., & Xue, Y. (2021).
Ardjal, A., Bettayeb, M., & Mansouri, R. (2019). Fractional
Fractional sliding mode control for micro gyroscope
nonlinear synergetic control of wind turbine for maxi-
based on multilayer recurrent fuzzy neural network.
mum power point tracking. In 2019 IEEE international
IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, 30(6), 1712–1721.
symposium on signal processing and information technology
https://doi.org/10.1109/TFUZZ.2021.3064704
(ISSPIT) (pp. 1–6). IEEE.
Ge, S. S., Hang, C. C., & Woon, L. (1997). Adaptive neural
Ardjal, A., Merabet, A., Bettayeb, M., Mansouri, R., & Labib,
network control of robot manipulators in task space. IEEE
L. (2019). Design and implementation of a fractional non-
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 44(6), 746–752.
linear synergetic controller for generator and grid convert-
https://doi.org/10.1109/41.649934
ers of wind energy conversion system. Energy, 186, 115861.
Humaidi, A. J., Ibraheem, I. K., Azar, A. T., & Sadiq, M. E.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.115861
(2020). A new adaptive synergetic control design for sin-
Axtell, M., & Bise, M. E. (1990). Fractional calculus applica-
gle link robot arm actuated by pneumatic muscles. Entropy,
tion in control systems. In IEEE conference on aerospace
22(7), 723. https://doi.org/10.3390/e22070723
and electronics (pp. 563–566). IEEE.
Kolesnikov, A.A., Veselov, G.E., & Vavilov, O.T. (2000). Mod-
Campeau-Lecours, A., Lamontagne, H., Latour, S., Fau-
ern applied control theory: Synergetic approach in control
teux, P., Maheu, V., Boucher, F., Deguire, C., & L’Ecuyer,
theory (part II). TRTU, Moscow, Taganrog, 4477–4479.
L.J.C. (2019). Kinova modular robot arms for service
Lazarević, M. P. (2015). Elements of mathematical phe-
robotics applications. In Rapid automation: Concepts,
nomenology of self-organization nonlinear dynamical sys-
methodologies, tools, and applications (pp. 693–719). IGI
tems: Synergetics and fractional calculus approach. Inter-
global.
national Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, 73, 31–42.
Cervantes, I., & Alvarez-Ramirez, J. (2001). On the pid track-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnonlinmec.2014.11.011
ing control of robot manipulators. Systems & Control Let-
Lee, H., & Utkin, V. I. (2007). Chattering suppression meth-
ters, 42(1), 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6911(00)
ods in sliding mode control systems. Annual Reviews in
00077-3
Control, 31(2), 179–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/
Charef, A. (2006). Analogue realisation of fractional-order
j.arcontrol.2007.08.001
integrator, differentiator and fractional PIλ Dμ controller.
Lewis, F. L., Dawson, D. M., & Abdallah, C. T. (2003). Robot
IEE Proceedings-Control Theory and Applications, 153(6),
manipulator control: Theory and practice. CRC Press.
714–720. https://doi.org/10.1049/ip-cta:20050019
Liu, C. H., & Hsiao, M. Y. (2012). A finite time syner-
Chen, Y., Ma, G., Lin, S., & Gao, J. (2012). Adaptive
getic control scheme for robot manipulators. Comput-
fuzzy computed-torque control for robot manipulator with
ers & Mathematics with Applications, 64(5), 1163–1169.
uncertain dynamics. International Journal of Advanced
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.camwa.2012.03.058
Robotic Systems, 9(6), 237. https://doi.org/10.5772/54643
Loverro, A. (2004). Fractional calculus: History, definitions
Chen, Y., Petras, I., & Xue, D. (2009). Fractional order
and applications for the engineer. Rapport technique, Uni-
control-a tutorial. In 2009 American control conference
veristy of Notre Dame: Department of Aerospace and
(pp. 1397–1411). IEEE.
Mechanical Engineering (pp. 1–28).
Chhabra, H., Mohan, V., Rani, A., & Singh, V. (2016). Multi
Machado, J. T., & Azenha, A. (1998). Fractional-order hybrid
objective pso tuned fractional order pid control of robotic
control of robot manipulators. In SMC’98 conference pro-
manipulator. In The international symposium on intelligent
ceedings. 1998 IEEE international conference on systems,
systems technologies and applications (pp. 567–572). Cham:
man, and cybernetics (Cat. No. 98CH36218) (Vol. 1,
Springer.
pp. 788–793). IEEE.
Commuri, S., Jagannathan, S., & Lewis, F. L. (1997). Cmac
Mehiri, A., Bettayeb, M., & Hamid, A. K. (2019). Fractional
neural network control of robot manipulators. Journal of
nonlinear synergetic control for three phase inverter tied
Robotic Systems, 14(6), 465–482. https://doi.org/10.1002/
to PV system. In 2019 8th international conference on
(ISSN)1097-4563
modeling simulation and applied optimization (ICMSAO)
Djennoune, S., & Bettayeb, M. (2013). Optimal synergetic
(pp. 1–5). IEEE.
control for fractional-order systems. Automatica, 49(7),
Monje, C. A., Chen, Y., Vinagre, B. M., Xue, D., & Feliu-
2243–2249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.automatica.2013.
Batlle, V. (2010). Fractional-order systems and controls:
04.007
Fundamentals and applications. Springer Science & Busi-
Dumlu, A., & Yıldırım, M. R. (2018). Real-time implemen-
ness Media.
tation of continuous model based sliding mode control
Ni, J., Liu, L., Liu, C., & Hu, X. (2017). Fractional order fixed-
technique for trajectory tracking control of mobile robot.
time nonsingular terminal sliding mode synchronization
152 A. SAIF ET AL.
and control of fractional order chaotic systems. Nonlin-
ear Dynamics, 89(3), 2065–2083. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11071-017-3570-6
Nikdel, N., Badamchizadeh, M., Azimirad, V., & Nazari,
M. A. (2016). Fractional-order adaptive backstepping
control of robotic manipulators in the presence of
model uncertainties and external disturbances. IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 63(10), 6249–6256.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2016.2577624
Podlubny, I. (1994). Fractional-order systems and fractional-
order controllers. Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak
Academy of Sciences, Kosice, 12(3), 1–18.
Sabatier, J., Oustaloup, A., Iturricha, A. G., & Lanusse, P.
(2002). Crone control: Principles and extension to time-
variant plants with asymptotically constant coefficients.
Nonlinear Dynamics, 29(1–4), 363–385. https://doi.org/
10.1023/A:1016531915706
Sankaran, J. (1999). Real-time computed torque control of
flexible-joint robots [dissertation]. National Library of
Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada.
Santi, E., Monti, A., Li, D., Proddutur, K., & Dougal, R. A.
(2004). Synergetic control for power electronicsapplications:
A comparison with the sliding mode approach. Journal
of Circuits, Systems and Computers, 13(04), 737–760.
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218126604001520
Shah, P., & Agashe, S. (2016). Review of fractional pid con-
troller. Mechatronics, 38, 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.mechatronics.2016.06.005
Sharma, R., Gaur, P., & Mittal, A. (2015). Performance anal-
ysis of two-degree of freedom fractional order pid con-
trollers for robotic manipulator with payload. ISA Trans-
actions, 58, 279–291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2015.
03.013
Slotine, J. J. E., & Li, W. (1991). Applied nonlinear control.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Sondhi, S., & Hote, Y. V. (2012). Fractional order controller
and its applications: A review. In Proc of AsiaMIC.
Tepljakov, A. (2011). Fractional-order calculus based iden-
tification and control of linear dynamic systems. Tallinn
University of Technology.
Wang, Y., Gu, L., Xu, Y., & Cao, X. (2016). Practical
tracking control of robot manipulators with continuous
fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode. IEEE
Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 63(10), 6194–6204.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2016.2569454
Xue, D., Chen, Y., & Atherton, D. P. (2007). Linear feedback
control: Analysis and design with matlab. SIAM.