Improved Trajectory Tracking Control for a Continuum Robot Using Error-Driven ADRC With Input Mapping Method

Continuum robots (CRs) have drawn increasing attention owing to their unique ability to operate in constrained environments. However, due to the deformability and compliant structures of CRs, parametric uncertainties and disturbances always exist in the CR system, which makes it a challenge to design high-performance controllers using conventional feedback control. In this article, we propose an error-driven active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) strategy that treats the internal uncertainty and external disturbance of the CR as a generalized disturbance and compensate for them. Furthermore, considering that the past input and output data from the control system can characterize the time-varying model of the CR, this article proposes an error-driven ADRC with input mapping method to further reduce the uncertainties and improve the control performance. The efficacy of the proposed method is verified through comparative simulations and experiments.