Cascaded Control using a State Feedback Controller with Position

Integrator Terms for Elastic Joint Robots

Luc Le-Tien(1) and Alin Albu-Schffer(2)
(1,2)
German Aerospace Center, Robotics and Mechatronics Center, (2)Technical University Munich
Email: Luc.Le-Tien@dlr.de, Alin.Albu-Schaeffer@dlr.de

Abstract
Because of the joint elasticity and high gearbox friction, the control performances of light weight exible joint robots
will be considered. In order to solve these problems this paper proposes a robust cascaded control scheme which
consists of two control loops, a computed torque controller based on rigid body dynamics as outer control loop and
a state feedback controller with additional position integrator terms as inner control loop. The computed torque
controller computes merely the reference values for the inner loop which can effectively damp structural oscillations
of the link side by using joint torque feedback. The cascaded control approach can therefore provide high control
performance both in terms of the dynamic behavior and the position accuracy. Further- more, this controller can be
combined with different friction compensation methods in order to eliminate the friction effects better than with
model-based friction compensation. Stability analysis based on Lyapunovs theory and Barbalats lemma is given for
the complete controlled system. Experimental results validate practical efciency of the approach.
Keywords:
Tracking control, cascaded control, state feedback controller with integrator terms, exible joint robots

I. INTRODUCTION
Compared with industrial robots, elastic joint robots
using Harmonic Drive gears with high reduction ratio
(1:100 or higher) have higher torque with respect to
their weight. Hence they may be constructed lighter and
thus allow a higher payload/weight ratio. Thus, they are
more and more utilized in automation systems, in
industry, or in medical applications. But, high gear ratio
and low joint stiffness cause high motor friction and high
robot elasticity, which on the other hand are challenging
problems for robot control.
Since measuring the precise link position is difcult or
expensive by using external sensors, most exible joint
robots are equipped only with motor position sensors.
Due to the lack of link side information, robot oscillations
caused by high friction and high elasticity cannot be
damped well and this leads to miserable results in terms
of the dynamic performance. In order to take this
problem into account a new generation of exible joint
robots has been developed at the German Aerospace
Center (DLR), the lightweight robots [1] and the medical
robot [2] (Fig. 1). In addition to motor position sensors,
these robots are equipped with link torque sensors and
thus can be effectively used for damping control. For set
point control of elastic joint robots, a simple PD
position controller based on feedback of the motor states
(only motor position and motor velocity) and a PD
position controller which avoids actuator saturation were
developed in [3], [4] respectively. Furthermore, in order
to reduce robot vibration, a passivity-based controller
with full state feedback (motor position, link side
torque, their derivatives) was proposed in [5]. These
controllers are very robust due to their simple structure,
but do not fulll high accuracy requirements.
In order to achieve high position accuracy many
tracking control methods were introduced in previous
research. In [6] a simple PD position controller was
proposed in combination with a Fuzzy logic approach for
trajectory tracking and vibration control. Based on
singular perturbation analysis some control approaches
were proposed in [7], [8]. In [9] a feedback input-output
linearization method was introduced. In order to
stabilize a nonlinear system in cascade with an
integrator chain, a backstepping approach was presented
in [10].
Furthermore, a cascaded control scheme which
accounts for actuator dynamics was introduced in [11].
Whereas the cascaded controller developed in [12]
consists of 2 control loops, a position controller as outer
control loop and a torque controller as inner control
loop, the cascaded controller in [13] uses a computed
torque and a state feedback controller (with full state
feedback from motor position, link side torque, their
derivatives) as outer and inner control loop respectively.
In order to consider varying parameters some adaptive
control schemes were introduced in [10], [12] and in
[14], [15], [16], where the latter include adaptive friction
compen- sation. This however requires an adaptive
control structure for the complete system dynamics.
Due to a huge number of the adapted dynamic
parameters, these methods are less robust for high DOF
system. In [17] an adaptive approach based on visual
decomposition control was introduced, which was build
for each separately joint and hence did not take
nonlinear dynamic couplings of the complex robot
into account.
Fig. 1. The KUKA-LWR IV robot and the DLR
medical robot.
 Most previous tracking control schemes provide high
position accuracy. However, they can hardly achieve a
good dynamic behavior, because they use high
derivatives or dont have full state feedback to
effectively reduce joint oscillations (e.g. PID controller).
As a consequence, they are predominantly not robust
enough for robots with high DOF. In order to improve
the control performance, in this contribution the
cascaded control structure of [13] is modied using a
new state feedback controller with position integrator
terms as inner control loop. Therefore, the reference value
computation in the outer loop is modied to ensure
system stability. The proposed control structure keeps the
robustness property of the state feedback controller of
[5]. In addition compared with [13], it improves the
tracking position accuracy of the robot via additional
integrator terms. Furthermore, in order to efciently
compensate the high motor friction, this control approach
can be combined with an observer-based friction
compensation [18] instead of a model-based friction
compensation without changing robustness of the
cascaded control structure.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II
introduces the dynamic robot model. In Sec. III the
control approach for exible joint robots is proposed
consisting of the computed torque controller and the
state feedback controller with integrator terms, using
model-based friction compensation. The stability of the
controlled system is analyzed. Next, in Sec. IV such
controller is designed for each linearized joint model.
Finally, t he obtained performance is veried by
experiments reported in Sec. V.
II. MODEL OF THE ROBOT DYNAMICS
The light weight robot (KUKA - LWR IV)1 in Fig.
1 has n = 7 rotary joints that exhibit considerable
elasticity because of the used Harmonic Drive gears with
high ratio. This robot is equipped with motor position
sensors and link torque sensors, which can be used for
control. The simplied dynamics of the DLR lightweight
robot with exible joints [1] is described by
= + +
= ( ) + ( , ) + ( )
Therein, q Rn and Rn are the link and motor
n
angles, respectively. f R is the friction torque. The
control is the motor torque u Rn. The motor inertia input
is the motor torque u Rn. The motor inertia matrix J
Rnxn is diagonal and positive denite. The transmission
torque between motor and link dynamics Rn is
modeled as a linear function of the motor and the link
(3)
= K( q)
and is measured by strain gauge based torque sensors.
The joint stiffness matrix K Rnxn is diagonal and
positive denite. Furthermore M (q) Rnxn is the mass
matrix, C(q, q) Rnxn the centrifugal and Coriolis matrix,
and g(q) Rn the gravity vector of the rigid body model.
1 Therst versions of the light weight robot were developed at the German
Aerospace Center (DLR). Now the light weight robots are available from
KUKA.
Fig. 2. Cascaded control structure.
Finally, in order to facilitate the controller design and the
stability analysis, the following three properties are used
P.1: The mass matrix M (q) is symmetric and
positive denite M (q) = M (q)T and
x T M (q)x 0, q, x Rn.
P.2 The matrix M (q)2C(q, q) is skew symmetric and
:
xT(M (q) 2C(q, q))x = 0, x, q, q Rn .
P.3: For the friction torque a dynamic friction model
(LuGre friction model [19], [13]) is chosen as
f = 0 z + 1 z + fv (4)
with the inner dynamics of the friction
= (5)
= + | |
Therein, is the measured link torque. 0 and 1
are stiffness and damping coefcients of the
LuGre friction model. fc, fv and fl represent the
Coulomb, viscous and load dependent
coefcients of the friction torque, respectively.
III. PROPOSED CASCADED CONTROL
(1) The new control law is designed based on the cascaded
structure in Fig. 2, which features two control loops are used.
(2)
The outer control loop computes the desired values for the
inner control loop (e. g. the desired motor position and the
desired link torque). Other than in [13], in the inner control
loop a state feedback controller with position integrator terms
is used to compute the desired motor torque. This should
increase the tracking position accuracy of the robot.
The link position (as well as the link velocity) is used
in this control structure, which unfortunately is not directly
measured at the KUKA - LWR IV robot. So in this work
the link position is indirectly calculated from the measured
motor position and the measured link torque, q = K1.
Now let us denote the desired motor position and the
desired link position as d and qd, respectively. According
to these variables the desired link torque can be dened by
d = K(d qd). (6)
Together with (3) this leads to the link torque error
e = d = K(e eq ). (7)
 with e and eq being the position tracking errors of the
For this proposed desired link torque one can obtain
motor side and the link side
the closed-loop link dynamics by inserting (14) and (2)
= (8) into (7)
= (9) =
= ( ) + + ( , ) +
This inner control loop ensures that the link position
+ ( + ). (16)
q converges to the desired link position q d. Therefore, a
state feedback controller with integrator terms is C. Stability Analysis

= + + + For stability analysis the following Lyapunov function

candidate is chosen
+ + + + (10)
= ( + ) ( + )
with
( )= + + ( )( + )

+ ( ) ( )
All gain matrices KI, KP, KD, KT and KS Rnxn are
positive denite and diagonal. The friction compensation + ( + + J )
term f is computed by using LuGre friction model (4).
+ + + ( ) ( ) (17)
Inserting the control law (10) into (1), one gets the closed-
loop motor dynamics
It+is (noticed
+ that
) all the gain
(matrices
+ )as well as the
+ + + (11) stiffness matrix K and the parameter matrix A are
) diagonal and positive denite. In addition, for positive
+( + + = 0.
deniteness of the function V the condition
Let us dene
+ + J (18)
= + (12)
has to be fullled.
where A is positive denite and diagonal as well.
Furthermore, together with (7), the closed-loop equation Then, the derivative of the function V along the trajectory,
(11) can be rewritten using equations (16) and (11), leads to
=( + ) ( + )
+ + +
(13) + + ( ) +
+ ( )+ ( ) = 0.
This equation will be used for stability analysis in Sec. + + ( )( + )
III-C. In order to use the control law (10), the desired link
torque and the desired motor position and their rst +( ) ( )
derivatives, as well as the desired motor acceleration + ( + + J )
have to be computed.
This is explained in the next section. +2 + +( ) ( )
B. Reference Value Computation +( + ) ( + )
In this outer control loop the desired link torque and the =( + ) [
desired motor position are determined. Their appropriate
+ ]
derivatives can be obtained through numerical
differentiation. Therefore, for the control law (10) the + + ( ) +
desired link torque d can be generated based on the rigid
body dynamics [20]. In a different way from [13], for the + + [ ( , ) +
control law (10) the desired link torque is proposed by ( + ).
= ( ) + + ( , ) + +( ) ( )
+ ( ) + ( + ) (14)
+ ( + + J )
where the matrices Kq and are positive denite and
diagonal. It is noticed that additional control damping +2 + +( ) ( )
terms are used in the desired link torque in order to (19)
ensure the stability of the closed-loop system. +( + ) ( + )
Hence, the desired motor position is determined from
the denition (6)
= + ( ) +
+ ( , ) + + ( )+ ( + )] (15)
 1
( ) 0 K
2 0
0 K ( + ) 1 0
= 0 0 2K

(21)
1 1
K K 0 0
2 2

By simplifying this equation using the property (P.2)

one obtains
Condition (25) is fullled when Hsi is positive
= ( ) denite. This leads to
( + ) - 1
> + . (29)
+ + 4 +
Then, Hi is positive denite. When all Hi are
positive denite, then is negative denite.
:= (20)
Therefore, the functions V > 0 and 0, if (18), (26)
and (29) are fullled. This implies that V (t) V (0),
With H being the symmetric Hessian matrix (see and
equation (21)). In (21) the null matrix is denoted by 0 therefore, that , , and are bounded. Because
Rnxn. the derivative of (using equations (16) and (11)) is
Because all matrices in the function are diagonal,
bounded as well, according to Barbalats lemma [20] the
the function can be rewritten by
function is uniformly continuous, and 0 as t .
That leads to { lim = 0, lim = 0 }, o r ,
=
(22) }, The system achieves convergence.
IV. LINEAR CONTROL DESIGN
with being the Hessian matrix of the joint i. Now let In order to use the control law (10), the control gains
us denote , , , , , , , , , as have to be designed to fulll the conditions (17), (26)
the diagonal terms of the matrices , , , , , , , and (29). In this work, for given and the control
gains , , , and are rstly determined
, , . Then, from (21) the matrix , is given by by using the pole placement method for each joint. Then
( ) these conditions are checked. With the control law (10)
0 0
2 one obtains the closed loop dynamics of the robot system
( + ) (11) and (16). Now let us consider the closed-loop
0 0
=

2

dynamics for one joint2 in the worst case (e.g. maximal
0 0 mass matrix)
0

2 2 0 + + +
(23) +( + ) + = 0.

with , , and R2x2 being sub- = + + +

matrices. with J and M being constant scalars.
From the lemma positive denite symmetric matrix By choosing = { , , , / , / } as
(see Appendix), the Hessian matrix Hi is positive denite state vector of the system, the system can be described in
if two inequality conditions are fullled the state space by
(31)
=
>0 (24)
> ( ) (25) with being the state matrix of the controlled
system (see equation (32)).
This means that the matrices and By using the pole placement method the control
( ( ) ) have to be positive definite. parameters are computed from the desired poles and
The condition (24) is fulfilled when system parameters. For the pole placement the
characteristic polynomial of each joint is given by
> (26)
( )( + 2 + )( + 2 + )
+ > (27)
with pi being the negative real pole of the integrator
Further, by taking the Schur complement of the matrix term. , and , are positive and determine four
Hi complex poles of the closed-loop system.
= ( ) As an example, table I and III (see Experiments)
show the system parameters of joint 1 and the
0 appropriate control parameters, respectively.
= .
0 ( + ) 2
in this case the Coriolis term is neglected for the control gain design.

(28)
 0 1 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0
( + )

=
0 0 0 0 1 (32)

( + ) ( + )
+ + + +

V. EXPERIMENTS TABLE II

Exact friction compensation plays an important role for IDENTIFIED FRICTION PARAMETERS OF THE DLR
the position accuracy. In order to avoid uncertainties of the MEDICAL ROBOT.
friction parameters, the proposed controller from Sec. III can
be used in combining with a disturbance observer [18] Joint (Nm) (Nms/rad) (Nm/rad) (Nms/rad)
instead of a xed LuGre-model based compensation of the
1 2.451 0.1263 9.2123 278.8535 28.29
friction effects. 2 10.51 0.1525 14.556 5033.382 317.6
In order to validate the control performance, the results of 3 10.35 0.1432 15.484 5423.556 286.5
4 3.719 0.1118 8.7484 1768.911 69.76
experiments with different controllers are compared: 5 4.618 0.0758 8.6934 1540.362 67.13
Controller 1: a PID controller with LuGre-based 6 0.680 0.0324 0.3744 190.8693 10.00
friction compensation, 7 0.331 0.0169 0.1267 191.0897 10.67
Controller 2: a set point controller developed in [5] TABLE III
(state feedback controller with LuGre-based CONTROLLER PARAMETERS FOR THE DLR MEDICAL ROBOT.
friction compensation),
Controller 3: a tracking controller developed in [13] Joint
(cascaded controller using the state feedback 1 16190 8443 167 1.590 0.0068798 5 2
2 10484 7268 301 2.966 0.0182072 5 2
controller without integrator terms and LuGre- 3 11107 7714 330 3.461 0.0083539 5 2
based friction com- pensation), 4 11634 6346 188 2.495 0.0016764 5 2
Controller 4: a tracking controller developed in 5 11048 6639 178 4.709 0.0221534 5 2
6 1313 683 4.5 1.940 0.0060800 1 0.5
Sec. III (cascaded controller using the state 7 1336 693 3.9 1.521 0.0053030 1 0.5
feedback controller with integrator terms and
LuGre-based friction compen- sation) Furthermore, it can be seen that the PID controller
Controller 5: a tracking controller developed in (controller 1) achieves only limited performance because
Sec. III (cascaded controller using the state the feedback is restricted to motor state variables only,
feedback controller with integrator terms and without using link side information such as link position
observer-based friction com- pensation [18]). or link torque.
All experiments are implemented either at the joint In the second experiment, a point to point trajectory
testbed only with joint 1, which is the same at KUKA- (see Fig. 4) is chosen in order to show the position
LWR IV robot and at DLR medical robot, or with a tracking accuracy of the robot. Fig. 5 shows the motor
complete KUKA- LWR IV robot or a complete DLR position accuracy of joint 1. It can be seen that the best
medical robot with 7 DOF. As an example, table I performance is clearly obtained by controller 5 (the black
shows the system parameters for the control design of curve). Whereas controller 4 has a steady state error
joint 1. The tables II and III represent the identied because of the coarsely modeled friction torque and the
friction parameters and the control design parameters of rigid body dynamics, the position error of controller 5
the DLR medical robot, respectively. converges to zero because of the integrator and a more
A. Experiments at Joint Testbed efcient observer-based friction compensation.

At rst, a position step of 2 deg is executed with joint B. Experiments with Robots
1 at the testbed, without friction compensation. Fig. 3
Furthermore, some experiments were taken with the
shows the measured link torques from different
controllers. It can be seen that the best transient com- plete DLR medical robot and the complete KUKA-
LWR IV robot. Let us denote the forward kinematics
performance is reached with controller 2. However, with
the proposed controller 4 the oscillations at the link of the robots as x = f (q) R6, then the Cartesian
torques are sufciently damped as well. position errors are dened by ex = xd x. Experimental
TABLE I results of the Cartesian position errors of the robots are
PARAMETERS OF JOINT 1 AT TESTBED, USED FOR THE
presented where all the joints of the robot are position
CONTROL DESIGN. controlled and track desired trajectories.
Motor inertial ( ) 0.6322 In case of the the DLR medical robot, the inner
Joint stiffness ( / ) 7743.0 control loop (including the state feedback controller and
Joint inertial ( ) 0.3405 the friction compensation) is implemented at 3 kHz
sampling rate, whereas the outer control loop is
computed at 1 kHz sampling rate because of the slow
system dynamics and
 Fig. 4. Desired link position,velocity of a point to point
trajectory.
Fig. 3. Measured link torque during step response without
friction compensation for joint 1.

the required computing time. Fig. 6 shows the desired

link trajectories and Fig. 7 compares the motor position
errors of the different controllers, respectively. It can be
seen that the cascaded controllers with integrator terms
and LuGre- based friction compensation (controller 4)
can achieve the same position accuracy as the PID
controller (controller 1). But, the PID controller causes
stronger oscillations from the link side (see measured
link torque in Fig. 8) because the feedback is restricted
to motor state variables only, without using link side
information such as link position or link torque.
Furthermore, when the cascaded controllers with
integrator terms are combined with a efcient observer-
based friction compensation [18], the motor position
errors are strongly reduced (see Fig. 9).
In contrast to the DLR medical robot, the KUKA-
LWR IV robot has no interface available to implement
the friction compensation in the joint level control at hight Fig. 5. Tracking motor position errors during the point to
sampling rate, whether based on a LuGre-model nor point trajectory for joint 1.
adaptive. So the ex- periments were implemented symmetric matrix Q:
without friction compensation. Fig. 10 shows the
experimental results. Obviously, the pro- posed controller
=
4 of this paper achieves better performance than
controller 1 or controller 3.
such that every submatrix is quadratic. Matrix A is
VI. CONCLUSIONS positive denite, if is positive denite and
holds
In this paper we have proposed a new cascaded
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Fig. 10. Cartesian position tracking errors for the KUKA-

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Fig. 9. Comparison of tracking motor position errors for the

DLR medical robot by using observer-based friction
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