Robust Adaptive Prescribed Performance Control for Manipulators With Actuator Saturation and Uncertain Surging Disturbance

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a fixed‐time sliding mode prescribed performance control for robotic manipulators with actuator saturation, parametric uncertainties, and external disturbance. Taking the situation that the disturbance may surge temporarily into consideration, we propose a revised performance function capable of adapting according to the saturation status. It overcomes the inherent defect of the traditional prescribed performance function, that is, the singularity problem occurs when the constrained control input fails to maintain the tracking error within the performance funnel. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate and assess the effectiveness of the proposed method.