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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Nonlinear Control of a Pneumatic Muscle Actuator System

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Abstract The performance of a Pneumatic Muscle Actuator under three tracking control strategies is compared: robust backstepping, sliding-mode and gain scheduling. Robustness is assured for the three controllers in the presence of model uncertainties and external perturbations. Exponential stability is proved for the sliding-mode tracking controller, ultimate boundedness for the backstepping tracking controller and exponential stability for constant or slowly-varying reference signals for the gain scheduling controller. Computer simulations show a good performance for the tracking of a sine wave by the first two controllers, although the sliding-mode strategy yields a high-frequency switching control law.