Virtual contractivity-based control of fully-actuated mechanical systems in the port-Hamiltonian framework

We present a trajectory tracking control design method for a class of mechanical systems in the port-Hamiltonian framework. The proposed solution is based on the virtual contractivity-based control (v-CBC) method, which employs the notions of virtual systems and of contractivity. This approach leads to a family of asymptotic tracking controllers that are not limited to those that preserve the pH structure of the closed-loop system nor require an intermediate change of coordinates. Nevertheless, structure preservation and other properties (e.g., passivity) are possible under sufficient conditions. The performance of the proposed v-CBC scheme is experimentally evaluated on a planar robot of two degrees of freedom (DoF).