International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems 2007

Oct. 17-20, 2007 in COEX, Seoul, Korea

Disturbance Observer Based Robust Control for Industrial Robots
with Flexible Joints
Sang-Kyun Park, and Sang-Hun Lee
Electro-Mechanical Research Institute, Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd
102-18, Mabuk-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, 446-716, Korea
(E-mail: pskl000@hhi.co.kr)
Abstract: In this paper, a disturbance observer based control algorithm is proposed for industrial robots having flexible
joints. The joint flexibility of the robot is modeled as a two mass system. We study on the practical issues for
implementing disturbance observer based control scheme in flexible joint robots. For industrial robots, generally the
sensors are located on the motor side. If we construct disturbance observer using motor side dynamics, due to the zero
dynamics, disturbance observer cannot directly reject the disturbance at the link side. To solve this problem, we propose
a dual observer that estimates disturbance and states simultaneously. Using the proposed dual observer, we construct
full state feedback controller. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme for disturbance rejection and robustness
is demonstrated by numerical simulation and experiment using HILS (Hardware In the Loop Simulation) system.
Keywords: Flexible Joint Robot, Disturbance Observer, Dual Observer, State Feedback Control
1. INTRODUCTION
The pose variation of a robot or uncertain payload
handled by the robot causes model parameter
uncertainty of industrial robots while the external force
on the end-effecter such as the operation force of the
spot welding gun causes the external disturbance. In
addition, dynamic interference coupling torques can be
considered as a disturbance at each robot axis.
Therefore disturbance rejection performance and
robustness to model uncertainties are very important
factors in evaluating the dynamic performance of
industrial robots. Since the disturbance observer based
control scheme has simple structure and powerful
performance, it is widely used for improving
disturbance rejection performance and robustness in
various mechanical servo systems [1-2, 6]. Umeno &
Hori proposed two degree of freedom controller which
had inner loop disturbance observer and outer loop
tracking controller [1]. The outer loop controller was
designed by controller parameterization technique for
the internal stability. Wang and Tomizuka proposed
design method for a disturbance observer using Hoo
optimization scheme [2]. Despite the fact that robot
manipulators with high gear ratios have the joint
flexibility, almost disturbance observer based control
methods assume that the robot joint is rigid body [1-2,
7].
In this paper, we consider the robot joint flexibility
and use flexible joint robot model which suggested by
Spong [4]. For the real implementation, not only
external disturbance but also model uncertainties,
unmodeled dynamics, dynamic coupling torques, and
gravity are lumped into disturbance term here. So we
can simplify the control problem as an independent joint
control with existing disturbance.
First, we study on the practical issues for
implementing disturbance observer based control
scheme in flexible joint robots. For industrial robots,
generally the angular sensors are only located on the
motor side [6, 8-10]. So it is a general approach to
construct disturbance observer using motor side
dynamics. We show the performance limitation of the
link side when the motor side disturbance observer is
applied. Due to the zero dynamics, disturbance observer
at the motor side cannot compensate the disturbance
effects at the link side.
To solve this problem, we propose a dual observer
based control scheme which estimates disturbance and
states simultaneously. Dual observer has been studied
by several researchers [5, 7, 11-12]. Their methods are
applicable when a rank condition between the output
matrix and the disturbance matrix is satisfied. However,
our system which has only motor side measurement do
not satisfy this rank condition. To remedy this problem,
we assume the disturbance dynamics and augment
observer states with the disturbance state [12]. This
approach does not need the plant dynamic inversion
which amplifies measurement noise.
With this dual observer, we propose a robust tracking
controller based on output regulator control algorithm.
To reduce peaking phenomenon which occurs when
estimated disturbance is compensated, we restrict the
magnitude of the disturbance feedback [16].
This paper is organized as follows. Flexible joint
robot model and decoupled flexible joint model with
disturbance are given in Section 2. Section 3 reviews
conventional disturbance observer approach and the
performance limitation analysis. In Section 4, a new
robust control method which has combined with dual
observer and output regulator control is proposed.
Simulation and experimental results are presented in
Section 5. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
2. MODEL OF FLEXIBLE JOINT ROBOT
According to [4], a flexible joint robot can be
modeled as
M(q)q + C(q
9
q) + G(q) = K(Olr-q) + T
d9
(1)
978-89-950038-6-2-98560/07/$15ICROS
584


( / ) .
K
J r q u
r
+ =
(2)
where
n
q R is the vector of joint coordinates,
( )
n n
M q R

is symmetric, positive definite inertia matrix,
( , )
n
C q q R includes the Coriolis and centrifugal terms,
( )
n
G q R is the gravity term. The vector
n
R is the
motor angle, J is diagonal matrix which stands for the
moment of inertia of the motors, K is joint stiffness
between motor and link, r is the gear reduction ratio.
If we rewrite Eq. (1),(2) separating each axis i, the
robot dynamic equation is expressed as

( , ) ( ) ( ) ,
i
j
ii i ij ij i i i i i d
M q M q C q q G q K q + + = + +

( / )
i
i i i i i i
i
K
J r q u
r
+ =

(3)
Nondiagonal terms, Coriolis and gravity term in
Eq.(3) can be lumped into disturbance term d
i
.
Eq.(1),(2) can be separately considered for each single
axis with disturbance :

( / )
ii i i i i i i
M q K r q d = +
( / )
i
i i i i i i
i
K
J r q u
r
+ =
(4)
( , ) ( ).
i ij ij i i
j
i
d
d M q C q q G q =

As a result of decoupling with the disturbance term d
i
,
we can simplify multi-axis robot manipulator control
problem to independent joint control problem with link
side disturbance as shown in Fig 1. Controller design
with Eq. (4) has an advantage of controller
implementation for its simple structure. For further
similar description of real robots, both motor side and
link side viscous friction terms B
m
, B
L
are added.
m
J
u
m

1/ r
K
L
J
L

L
B
m
B
d
m
J
u
m

1/ r
K
L
J
L

L
B
m
B
d

Fig. 1 Two-mass System
According to the notation of Fig. 1, Eq. (4) is
changed as

( / )
L L
J q B q K r q d + = +
( / )
m m
K
J B r q u
r
+ + =
(5)
In the Laplace domain Eq. (5) is represented by the
block diagram of Fig. 2.

2 2
( ) /
m m m
p s J s B s K r = + + ,
2 2 2 2
( ) / / /
l L L
p s J r s B r s K r = + + . . (6)

1
( )
m
p s
1
( )
l
p s
2
/ K r
2
/ K r
/ d r

q
1/ r u
+
+
+
+ 1
( )
m
p s
1
( )
l
p s
2
/ K r
2
/ K r
/ d r

q
1/ r u
1
( )
m
p s
1
( )
l
p s
2
/ K r
2
/ K r
/ d r

q
1/ r u
+
+
+
+

Fig. 2 Block diagram of two-mass system
The state space equation of the single-axis flexible
joint robot can be represented as

x Ax Bu Nd = + + (7)
where [ ]
T
x q q =

,
2
1
1 1
0 1 0 0
0
0 0 0 1
0
1
1
0 0
0
0
, ,
0
0
.
r
r r
L
B
K K
L
J J J
L L L
B
K K
m
J J J
m m m
J
m
J
A B N


= = =
(
( (
(
( (
(
( (
(
( (
(
( (
(
( (
(
( (
(



3. TYPICAL DISTURBANCE OBSERVER
WITH FLEXIBLE JOINT ROBOT

Disturbance observer technique is widely used in
mechanical servo systems for improving disturbance
rejection and robust performance [1-2, 6]. But almost
works assumed that the stiffness of the servo system is
sufficiently large to neglect the joint flexibility.
Fig. 3 shows the block diagram that typical methods
in [1-2, 6] is applied for a flexible joint robot, where v is
outer loop controller command. P
n
(s) is nominal plant
model. Q(s) is low-pass filter with a DC gain of one. In
order to see the behavior of the typical disturbance
observer loop without considering joint flexibility, it is
necessary to look at the transfer functions from d, and v
to q, and .
1
( )
m
p s
1
( )
l
p s
2
/ K r
2
/ K r
/ d r

q
1/ r v
+
+
+
+
1
( ) ( )
n
Q s P s

( ) Q s
+
u

+
Disturbance observer
1
( )
m
p s
1
( )
l
p s
2
/ K r
2
/ K r
/ d r

q
1/ r v
+
+
+
+
1
( ) ( )
n
Q s P s

( ) Q s
+
u

+
Disturbance observer

Fig. 3 Disturbance observer loop at the motor side
The transfer function from d, v to motor angle is
given by
2
(1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( / )
( )
( ) (1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( )
n
d
l n
Q s P s P s K r
G s
p s r Q s P s Q s P s

=
+
(8)
( ) ( )
( )
(1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( )
n
v
n
P s P s
G s
Q s P s Q s P s

=
+
(9)
585
where P(s) is the transfer function of the plant from u to
in Fig 2.
2 2
( )
( )
( ) ( ) ( / ) .
l
m l
p s
P s
p s p s K r
=

(10)

The transfer function from d, v to link angle q is
given by
2
(1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) 1
( ) (1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( )
n m
qd
l n
Q s P s P s p s Q s P s
G
p s r Q s P s Q s P s
+
=
+
.(11)
2
( ) ( ) /
( ) (1 ( )) ( ) ( ) ( )
n
qv
l n
P s P s K r
G
p s r Q s P s Q s P s
=
+
.(12)

When ( ) 1 Q s , Eq. (8) goes to zero and Eq. (9)
becomes P
n
(s). This indicates that disturbance observer
reject the disturbance and compensate model
uncertainty effectively in the view of motor side. So
from the view of motor side, motor side dynamics
behaves as the nominal model. However Eq. (11), (12)
become
2
1
( )
1
qd
l
G
p s r
,
2
/
( )
( )
qv n
l
K r
G P s
p s r
. -. (13)

Eq. (13) shows that although disturbance rejection
and robustness is improved at the motor side, at link
side, motor side zero dynamics p
l
(s) in Eq. (10) remains
the poles of the whole system including disturbance
observer. In real plant, because B
L
is much smaller than
K, the poles of p
l
(s) are located in the left half plane
near the imaginary axis. These poles generate the link
side vibration.
To remedy link side vibration caused by disturbance,
disturbance observer considering joint flexibility must
be implemented together with the link angle q. But in
general, industrial robots can only measure the motor
position. So we need a new approach to estimate link
side states as well as disturbance.

4. ROBUST CONTROLLER DESIGN

4.1 Dual Observer Design

We consider the dynamic system with disturbance to
design dual observer. The state space equation is

x Ax Bu Nd = + + f
y Cx = f (14)

where x, u , d, and y are states, control input,
disturbance, and measurement outputs.
There is variety of existing dual observers which
estimates states and disturbances simultaneously
[7,13,14]. The unknown input observer(UIO) method,
one of the most well known approach, assumes that
disturbance is proportional that output estimation error.
The UIO structure[7,13,14] is represented as

( ) x Ax Bu Nd L y Cx = + + +

( ) d K y Cx = (15)

The UIO as shown in Eq. (15) is applicable when the
rank condition is satisfied [13-14]. The rank condition is
that CN has a full rank. Unfortunately, since our
system has only one measurement, which is motor angle,
the rank condition cannot be satisfied. In order to design
stable dual observer, we need two assumptions [15]:

(A1) disturbance dynamics is known.
(A2) The poles of disturbance dynamics do not locate
left-half plane.

According to assumption (A1) and (A2) disturbance
model is represented by

w Sw =
d Qw = cc (16)

where
d
n
w R , and eigenvalues of S dont have negative
real part.
Plant model Eq.(14) can be augmented with the
disturbance model in Eq. (16). Then, augmented plant
model is given by

0 0
x A NQ x B
u
w S w
= = +
( ( ( (
( ( ( (

(17)
[ ] 0 y C =

where is the augmented state. Then the dual observer
can be constructed as follows.


0
x x
w w
A L C NQ L x B x
u y
L Q S L w w

= + +

( ( ( ( (
( ( ( ( (

(18)

In Eq. (18), the observer gains L
x
and L
w
can be
designed by pole placement method.

4.2 Robust Controller Design

The design of the robust controller is based on Eq. (7)
together with assumption Eq. (16). Because the control
objective is that the link side angle is tracking the
reference trajectory, the control problem is represented
as
x Ax Bu Nd = + +
d
z Hx q = + .(19)
where [ ] 1 0 0 0
T
H = ,and control objective is
lim 0
t
z

.
We design the robust controller dividing two parts.
The first part is feedforward controller for the tracking
of reference trajectory. The second part is feedback
controller for the stability of the system and disturbance
586


rejection. The controller structure is represented as
ff fb ff x x w
u u u u K e K w = + = + + (20)
where
ff
u is feedforward term and
fb
u is feedback term.

(A) Feedforward controller
For the design of the feedforward controller, we
assume that disturbance and initial state error are zero.
Then Eq. (19) is
d d ff
x Ax Bu = +
0
d d
z Hx q = + = -(21)
where the notation d means the desired value.
From Eq. (19), we can obtain the feedforward
controller :
1 2 3 4 5 ff f d f d f f d f d
u K q K q K q K q K q = + + + +
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
0
/
( )
/
T
T
m L
f
m L
f
m L
f f
L m m L
f
f
m L
B B r
K
B B
K
J J
K
K K
B J B J
K
K
K
J J
K
r
+
+ +
= =
+









` `



)

)
(22)

From Eq. (22), for the feedforward control, it is
necessary that the reference trajectory is 4
th
order
differentiable.

(B) Feedback controller
As a result of feedforward control in Eq. (22), Eq.
(19) is changed to error dynamics,
fb x x
e Ae Bu Nd = + + ,
x
z He = . (23)
where e
x
= x
d
x is state error. With the assumption in
Eq. (16), this formula is appropriate to apply the output
regulation control algorithm in [15]. The feedback
controller consists of state feedback part and
disturbance feedback part. The control structure is given
by
fb x w x
u K e K w = (24)
Together with Eq. (17), Eq. (23) can be augmented as
fb x x
e Ae Bu NQw = + +
w Sw = (25)
For the output z regulation, the tracking error e
x
should
be located in output zeroing manifold.
x
e Xw = (26)

From Eq. (17),(24),(25), and (26), the stable output
regulation controller can be designed by following
theorem.

Theorem 1 suppose that A-BK
x
is Hurwitz, and there
exists a matrix X and feedback gain K
w
satisfying
( )
0
x w
A BK X XS BK NQ
HX
=
=
.(27)
Then lim 0
t
z

is satisfied.
proof : Define new state variable
x x
e e Xw = , then
system (25) can be rewritten as

{ } ( ) ( )
x x x x w
e A BK e A BK X XS BK NQ w = + +

x
z He HXw = + (28)

Substituting Eq. (27) into Eq. (28), the above equivalent
system description is

( )
x x x
e A BK e =

x
z He = (29)

Since A-BK
x
is Hurwitz, the whole closed loop system
state
x
e goes to zero. Therefore, the output regulation
condition lim 0
t
z

is satisfied.
Q.E.D

The state feedback gain K
x
can be designed by many
methods. In this paper we designed K
x
using pole
placement technique. The remaining term of feedback
controller is disturbance feedback gain K
w
. For the
simplicity of the problem, we can assume that the
disturbance is step function, then the disturbance model
in Eq.(16) is chosen as
0, 1 S Q = = (30)
Using the system model in Eq.(7) with the assumption
(30) and given K
x
, we can obtain X and K
w
, the solution
of Eq. (27). The result is

2
3
2
( / ) 1
/
x
w
K r K
K
r K r
+
=
[ ] 0 0 / 0
T
X r K = (31)
For the practical implementation, we restrict
disturbance feedback torque in some range with
saturation scheme. With this scheme, we prevent the
peaking phenomenon, which is occurred when the
estimated disturbance change rapidly [16].

5. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT

5.1 Simulation Result

Two different controllers are simulated to compare
the tracking performance and robustness. The first
controller is observer based state feedback
controller(OSC) in [9], the second is proposed controller.
587
Two controllers which are designed by pole placement
method have the almost same closed loop poles. Plant is
modeled with the parameters of two-mass system
experiment equipment in HHI, and the plant model
includes the link side Coulomb friction.
Fig.4 shows that two controller has similar tracking
performance when the plant model parameters are
known exactly. But at the steady state, while the
OSC(red) has the steady state error at link angle,
proposed controller does not have steady state error.
This means that the Coulomb friction term is
compensated well.
3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5
198.5
198.7
198.9
199.1
199.3
time(sec)
A
n
g
l
e

(
r
a
d
)
DOB
OSC

(a) Link angle
1.1 1.3 1.5 1.7 1.8
97
101
105
time(sec)
A
n
g
u
l
a
r

V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
(
r
a
d
/
s
e
c
)
OSC
DOB

(a) Link Velocity
Fig. 4 Simulation results for proposed control(DOB)
and observer based state feedback control(OSC)
We simulate the situation where there are 30%
perturbations on the link side inertia. Fig. 5 shows that
the tracking error for the two controllers. The proposed
controller(DOB) shows more robust performance than
observer based state feedback controller(OSC).
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
time(sec)
A
n
g
l
e
(
r
a
d
)
100%
70%
130%

(a) DOB
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
time(sec)
A
n
g
l
e
(
r
a
d
)
100%
70%
130%

(b) OSC
Fig. 5 Tracking error plots for DOB and OSC control
5.2 Experimental results

To evaluate control performance, we use the
HyRoHILS(Hyundai Robot Hardware In the Loop
Simulation) system as shown in Fig 6. It consists of a
host station, a prototyping device(dSPACE equipment),
drive units and a 6-DOF HA006 robot manipulator.


Fig. 6 HyRoHILS system
Short pitch motion trajectory is used for the
evaluation of controller. Short pitch motion is the
general performance index of industrial robot in terms
of vibration suppression. The position of end-effecter is
measured by 3D-position measurement unit.
Proposed controller is compared with conventional
PPI controller. PPI control consists of inner velocity
feedback PI controller and outer position feedback P
controller. The proposed control algorithm only
implemented in base axis. Two controllers are designed
with the standard position parameter of HA006.
Experiment is performed for the case that robot has 40%
larger load inertia than nominal value in base axis. The
experimental results are shown in Fig 7. The proposed
controller(DOB) shows good performance in short pitch
motion. Despite of 40% perturbation of load inertia, the
oscillations of all the direction x, y, and z are much
smaller than PPI controller.

6. CONCLUSION

A disturbance observer based control algorithm was
proposed for flexible joints of industrial robots. The
588


multi axis robot control problem was considered as the
independent single axes of two mass system with link
side disturbance. For the estimation state and
disturbance simultaneously, dual observer was designed
with the assumption that disturbance dynamic was
known. The controller was implemented with output
regulation control. To prevent peaking phenomenon, the
disturbance feedback torques was restricted by some
range. The HyRoHILS system was used for the
evaluating control algorithm. The proposed algorithm
was found to have good tracking performance and
robustness against model uncertainty.
-120 -70 -20 30
878.2
878.6
879
879.4
x (mm)
z

(
m
m
)
Short Pitch motion
PPI
DOB

(a) Short pitch motion
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
-160
-140
-120
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
time (sec)
x

(
m
m
)
PPI
DOB

(b) plot of position x
0 1 2 3 4
1124
1126
1128
1130
1132
1134
1136
time (sec)
y

(
m
m
)
PPI
DOB

(c) plot of position y
Fig. 7 Experimental results for proposed
control(DOB) and PPI control(PPI)
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589