Continuous finite-time control for robotic manipulators with terminal sliding mode

A new continuous finite-time control scheme for trajectory-tracking problem of robotic manipulators is proposed using terminal sliding mode (TSM). The finitetime convergence property of TSM is applied in both the reaching phase and the sliding phase of the sliding mode control system. As a result, the closed-loop system is globally finite-time stable and the trajectory-tracking objective is achieved in finite time. The resulting control law is continuous therefore chattering-free. Furthermore, it overcomes the common singularity problem in TSM. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed control strategy has stronger robustness and disturbanceattenuation ability compared with the conventional boundary-layer method. Simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.