A Novel Decentralized Fixed-time Tracking Control for Modular Robot Manipulators: Theoretical and Experimental Verification

This paper presents a novel decentralized fixed-time tracking control approach, which realizes the advantages of modular robot manipulators (MRMs) with fixed-time convergence, strong robustness, and high tracking performance. First, to estimate the total uncertainty of MRMs, the fixed-time observer based on the extended state is developed. Then, combined with the disturbance observer, a novel decentralized control method based on a fixed-time control strategy was devised to accomplish global fixed-time convergence of MRMs. And, stability analysis based on Lyapunov is utilized to obtain the fixed-time stability as well as convergence time of MRMs. Finally, numerical analysis and experiment respectively verify the excellent tracking ability of the presented decentralized fixed-time tracking control.