A combined GPC-H _∞ cascade control for pneumatic actuators: A comparative study

This paper presents a comparison study between three types of pneumatic actuators. The goal is to choose the most suitable for low cost and high power-to-weight pick-and-place parallel robotic tasks. A cascade strategy scheme with an outer predictive position controller and an inner pressure H _∞ controller is developed and adapted for both cylinders and PAMs. Experimentations show that the cascade scheme presents better results than state of the art sliding mode control: the predictive controller reduces the time response and guarantees good dynamic tracking while the H _∞ inner pressure controller provides more robustness relatively to load variations which are important requirements for pick-and place robotic tasks.