Adaptive Task Space Nonsingular Terminal Super-Twisting Sliding Mode Control of a 7-DOF Robotic Manipulator

This article presents a new task-space nonsingular terminal super-twisting sliding mode (NT-STSM) controller with adaptive gains for robust trajectory tracking of a seven-degree-of-freedom (7-DOF) robotic manipulator. The proposed approach addresses the challenges of chattering, unknown disturbances, and rotational motion tracking, making it suited for high-DOF manipulators in dexterous manipulation tasks. A rigorous boundedness proof is provided, offering gain selection guidelines for practical implementation. Simulations and hardware experiments with external disturbances demonstrate the proposed controller’s robust, accurate tracking with reduced control effort under unknown disturbances compared to other NT-STSM and conventional controllers. The results demonstrated that the proposed NT-STSM controller mitigates chattering and instability in complex motions, making it a viable solution for dexterous robotic manipulations and various industrial applications.