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The sensorless external force estimation of robot manipulator can be helpful for reducing the cost and complexity of the robot system. However, the complex friction phenomenon of the robot joint and uncertainty of robot model and signal noise significantly decrease the estimation accuracy. This study aims to investigate the friction modeling and the noise rejection of the external force estimation.

A LuGre-linear-hybrid (LuGre-L) friction model that combines the dynamic friction characteristics of the robot joint and static friction of the drive motor is proposed to improve the modeling accuracy of robot friction. The square root cubature Kalman filter (SCKF) is improved by integrating a Sage Window outer layer and a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDOB) inner layer. In the outer layer, Sage Window is integrated in the square root Kalman filter (W-SCKF) to dynamically adjust noise statistics. NDOB is applied as the inner layer of W-SCKF (NDOB-WSCKF) to obtain the uncertain state variables of the state model.

A peg-in-hole contact experiment conducted on a real robot demonstrates that the average accuracy of the estimated joint torque based on LuGre-L is improved by 4.9% in contrast to the LuGre model. Based on the proposed NDOB-WSCKF, the average estimation accuracy of the external joint torque can reach up to 92.1%, which is improved by 4%–15.3% in contrast to other estimation methods (SCKF and NDOB).

A LuGre-L friction model is proposed to handle the coupling of static and dynamic friction characteristics for the robot manipulator. An improved SCKF is applied to estimate the external force of the robot manipulator. To improve the noise rejection ability of the estimation method and make it more resistant to unmodeled state variable, SCKF is improved by integrating a Sage Window and NDOB, and a NDOB-WSCKF external force estimator is developed. Validation results demonstrate that the accuracy of the robot dynamics model and the estimated external force is improved by the proposed method.

To meet the need of reducing the cost of industrial systems, sensorless control applications on electrical machines are increasing day by day. This paper aims to improve the performance of the sensorless induction motor control system. To do this, the speed observer is designed based on the combination of the sliding mode and the fractional order integral.

Super-twisting sliding mode (STSM) and Grünwald–Letnikov approach are used on the proposed observer. The stability of the proposed observer is verified by using Lyapunov method. Then, the observer coefficients are optimized for minimizing the steady-state error and chattering amplitude. The optimum coefficients (c₁, c₂, k_i and λ) are obtained by using response surface method. To verify the effectiveness of proposed observer, a large number of experiments are performed for different operation conditions, such as different speeds (500, 1,000 and 1,500 rpm) and loads (100 and 50 per cent loads). Parameter uncertainties (rotor inertia J and friction factor F) are tested to prove the robustness of the proposed method. All these operation conditions are applied for both proportional integral (PI) and fractional order STSM (FOSTSM) observers and their performances are compared.

The observer model is tested with optimum coefficients to validate the proposed observer effectiveness. At the beginning, the motor is started without load. When it reaches reference speed, the motor is loaded. Estimated speed and actual speed trends are compared. The results are presented in tables and figures. As a result, the FOSTSM observer has less steady-state error than the PI observer for all operation conditions. However, chattering amplitudes are lower in some operation conditions. In addition, the proposed observer shows more robustness against the parameter changes than the PI observer.

The proposed FOSTSM observer can be applied easily for industrial variable speed drive systems which are using induction motor to improve the performance and stability.

The robustness of the STSM and the memory-intensive structure of the fractional order integral are combined to form a robust and flexible observer. This paper grants the lower steady-state error and chattering amplitude for sensorless speed control of the induction motor in different speed and load operation conditions. In addition, the proposed observer shows high robustness against the parameter uncertainties.