Anni Zhao

The Delta robot is an over-actuated parallel robot with highly nonlinear kinematics and dynamics. Designing the control for a Delta robot to carry out various operations is a challenging task. Various advanced control algorithms, such as adaptive control, sliding mode control, and model predictive control, have been investigated for trajectory tracking of the Delta robot. However, these control algorithms require a reliable input–output model of the Delta robot. To address this issue, we have created a control-affine neural network model of the Delta robot with stepper motors. This is a completely data-driven model intended for control design consideration and is not derivable from Newton’s law or Lagrange’s equation. The neural networks are trained with randomly sampled data in a sufficiently large workspace. The sliding mode control for trajectory tracking is then designed with the help of the neural network model. Extensive numerical results are obtained to show that the neural network model together with the sliding mode control exhibits outstanding performance, achieving a trajectory tracking error below 5 cm on average for the Delta robot. Future work will include experimental validation of the proposed neural network input–output model for control design for the Delta robot. Furthermore, transfer learnings can be conducted to further refine the neural network input–output model and the sliding mode control when new experimental data become available.