Improving the tracking performance of mechanical systems by adaptive extended friction compensation

The paper discusses a tracking control system and shows with simulation and experimental results that extended friction models can be successfully incorporated in a computed-torque-like adaptive control scheme. The friction model used includes Coulomb, viscous, and periodic friction with sense of direction dependent parameters. To get small tracking errors, adaptation of the friction model parameters is necessary. The tracking performance is an order of magnitude better than with PD control. The robustness of the scheme for parameter inaccuracies is sufficient, owing to the adaptation, but the controller gains are limited due to stability problems caused by unmodeled dynamics.