Tracking Control of Fully-actuated Mechanical port-Hamiltonian Systems using Sliding Manifolds and Contraction

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel trajectory tracking controller for fully-actuated mechanical port-Hamiltonian (pH) systems, which is based on recent advances in contraction-based control theory. Our proposed controller renders a desired sliding manifold (where the reference trajectory lies) attractive by making the corresponding error system partially contracting. Finally, we present numerical simulation results where a SCARA robot is commanded by our proposed tracking control law.