In this paper, a simple model-free controller for electrically driven robot manipulators is presented using function approximation techniques (FAT) such as Legendre polynomials (LP) and Fourier series (FS). According to the orthogonal functions theorem, LP and FS can approximate nonlinear functions with an arbitrary small approximation error. From this point of view, they are similar to fuzzy systems and can be used as controller to approximate the ideal control law. In comparison with fuzzy systems and neural networks, LP and FS are simpler and less computational. Moreover, there are very few tuning parameters in LP and FS. Consequently, the proposed controller is less computational in comparison with fuzzy and neural controllers. The case study is an articulated robot manipulator driven by permanent magnet direct current (DC) motors. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control approach and its superiority over neuro-fuzzy controllers.

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This paper presents a novel decentralized tracking control system of electrically driven flexible-joint robots by adaptive type-2 fuzzy estimation and compensation of uncertainties. Owing to using voltage control strategy, the proposed control approach has important advantages over the torque control approaches in terms of being free from manipulator dynamics, computationally simple and decoupled. The design includes two interior loops: the inner loop controls the motor position while the outer loop controls the joint angle of the robot. An adaptive proportional–integral–derivative controller governs the outer loop, whereas a robust nonlinear controller supported by estimation of uncertainty is employed for the inner loop. More specifically, the main contribution of the paper arises from this fact that the proposed control method uses the interval Type-2 Fuzzy Logic systems for estimation of uncertainty. This is the main difference between this paper and those published in literature. One advantage of the proposed approach is that it uses available feedbacks as an important advantage from a practical point of view. The method is verified by stability analysis and its effectiveness is demonstrated by simulations. The direct method of Lyapunov is utilized for stability analysis of the proposed approach. The case of study is the tracking control of a three-joint articulated flexible-joint robot driven by permanent magnet DC motors. Simulation results show the superior robustness of the type-2 fuzzy system to Type-1 fuzzy system.

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In this paper a novel hybrid direct/indirect adaptive fuzzy neural network (FNN) moving sliding mode tracking controller for chaotic oscillation damping of power systems is developed. The proposed approach is established by providing a tradeoff between the indirect and direct FNN controllers. It is equipped with a novel moving sliding surface (MSS) to enhance the robustness of the controller against the present system uncertainties and unknown disturbances. The major contribution of the paper arises from the new simple tuning idea of the sliding surface slope and intercept of the MSS. This study is novel because the approach adopted tunes the sliding surface slope and intercept of MSS using two simple rules simultaneously. One advantage of the proposed approach is that the restriction of knowing the bounds of uncertainties is also removed due to the adaptive mechanism. Moreover, the stability of the control system is also presented. The proposed controller structure is successfully employed to damp the complicated chaotic oscillations of an interconnected power system, when such oscillations can be made by load perturbation of a power system working on its stability edges. Comparative simulation results are presented, which confirm that the proposed hybrid adaptive type‐2 fuzzy tracking controller shows superior tracking performance.

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In this paper, an intelligent control scheme is proposed to suppress vibrations between the pantograph and the catenary by regulating the contact force to a reference value, thereby achieving stable current collection. In order to reduce the computational cost, an interval Type-2 adaptive fuzzy logic control with the Moradi–Zirhohi–Lin type reduction method is applied to deal with model uncertainties and exterior interference. Based on a simplified pantograph–catenary system model, the comparative simulation results show that variation of the contact force can be attenuated and variation disturbances can be repressed simultaneously. Furthermore, in terms of computational burden, the proposed type reduction method outperforms other type reduction methods.

Type-1 fuzzy sets cannot fully handle the uncertainties. To overcome the problem, type-2 fuzzy sets have been proposed. The novelty of this paper is using interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller (IT2FLC) to control a flexible-joint robot with voltage control strategy. In order to take into account the whole robotic system including the dynamics of actuators and the robot manipulator, the voltages of motors are used as inputs of the system. To highlight the capabilities of the control system, a flexible joint robot which is highly nonlinear, heavily coupled and uncertain is used. In addition, to improve the control performance, the parameters of the primary membership functions of IT2FLC are optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO). A comparative study between the proposed IT2FLC and type-1 fuzzy logic controller (T1FLC) is presented to better assess their respective performance in presence of external disturbance and unmodelled dynamics. Stability analysis is presented and the effectiveness of the proposed control approach is demonstrated by simulations using a two-link flexible-joint robot driven by permanent magnet direct current motors. Simulation results show the superiority of the IT2FLC over the T1FLC in terms of accuracy, robustness and interpretability.