Real-time MIMO nonlinear adaptive control of a translational manipulator

In this paper, a model reference adaptive controller is designed and implemented to stabilize concurrently car and arm positions of a translational manipulator of 2DOF (2 Degrees of Freedom) fulfilling design specifications in the continuous time-domain. The MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) adaptive control law employs in its design the nonlinear dynamic model of the manipulator. Intensive simulation studies verified the ability of the adaptive control system to track arbitrary desired reference positions. A cRIO (compact Reconfigurable Input Output) platform containing proper DAQ (Data Acquisition) modules is employed for the experimental phase of this work. All required programs are written in Lab VIEW-Mathscript code. Experimental results verify that the controlled outputs of the manipulator meet the design specifications.