Tracking control for 2-DOF continuum manipulator based on fixed-time sliding mode method

Continuum manipulator is a new type of biomimetic manipulator. This type of manipulator has broad application prospects in many fields. This paper studies the tracking control problem for a continuum manipulator with two degrees of freedom (DOF). A new tracking control method based on fixed-time sliding mode technology is developed. First, the dynamic model of this 2-DOF continuum manipulator is established by using Euler-Lagrange modeling method. Second, the sliding mode functions are constructed for the error systems and the tracking controllers are designed based on fixed-time stability theory. The designed controllers enable the tracking control objective of the manipulator to be achieved within a fixed time. Finally, numerical simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our developed control strategy.