Abstract
A robust adaptive controller with guaranteed transient performance under a desired compensation adaptation law is developed for trajectory tracking control of robot manipulators in the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. With some modifications to the conventional adaptation law, a new control law is redesigned by combining the design methodologies of adaptive control and continuous sliding mode control. The suggested controller preserves the advantages of the true methods, namely, asymptotic stability of adaptive system for parametric uncertainties and globally uniformly ultimately bounded stability with guaranteed transient performance of sliding mode control for both parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. The control law is continuous, and the chattering problem of sliding mode control is avoided. Experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.<>