Manipulator path control using SDRE

A controller synthesis based on state dependent Riccati equation methods is presented. The methodology is applied to the path control of a slow moving robot manipulator, for the purpose of method validation. Due to hardware limitations, not all the manipulator joints were controlled, and the resulting gains are obtained off-line using numerical simulation on a model identified via least squares techniques. Satisfactory results were obtained as compared to standard PID and computed torque control methods.