Robust fault tolerant optimal predictive control of hybrid actuators with time‐varying delay for industrial robot arm

Abstract This paper presents a robust hybrid fault‐tolerant optimal predictive control (HFTPC), for an industrial robot arm under hybrid (electric and pneumatic) actuator faults and/or varying time‐delays. Based on the error dynamics, estimated states, and a predictive controller, a new state feedback control law is proposed and implemented for the reformulation of the optimal control problem of a nonlinear faulty hybrid actuator system based on predictive control via linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). First, a robust MPC scheme is performed in which the future control sequence is used to compensate the varying time‐delays. Then, a robust stable hybrid fault tolerant predivtive control is implemented to handle actuators faults to effect robust trajectory tracking. In fact, the stability of hybrid systems based on the proposed control scheme is a very sensitive criterion. Therefore, stability conditions are required for controlling the industrial arm under faulty hybrid (electric and pneumatic) actuator, based on the Lyapunov‐Krasovskii (L‐K) theory, less conservative stable conditions in terms of LMIs are given and used to ensure the asymptotically robust stability of closed‐loop constrained system that dependent delay‐range. To highlight the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed approach, a simulation study of an industrial robot arm example is proved, where the results showed the prompt and the accuracy of the proposed scheme.