The material presented in this monograph is a logical continuation of research results achieved in the control of manipulation robots. This is in a way, a synthesis of many-year research efforts of the associates of Robotics Department, Mihailo Pupin Institute, in the field of dynamic control.of robotic systems. As in Vol. 2 of this Series, all results rely on the mathematical models of dynamics of active spatial mechanisms which offer the possibility for adequate dynamic control of manipula tion robots. Compared with Vol. 2, this monograph has three essential new character istics, and a variety of new tasks arising in the control of robots which have been formulated and solved for the first time. One of these novelties is nonadaptive control synthesized for the case of large variations in payload parameters, under the condition that the practical stability of the overall system is satisfied. Such a case of control synthesis meets the actual today's needs in industrial robot applications. The second characteristic of the monograph is the efficient adaptive control algorithm based on decentralized control structure intended for tasks in which parameter variations cannot be specified in advance. To be objective, this is not the case in industrial robotics today. Thus, nonadaptive control with and without a particular parameter variation is supplemented by adaptive dynamic control algorithms which will cer tainly be applicable in the future industrial practice when parametric identification of workpieces will be required."

This is the fourth book from the Series "Scientific Fundamentals of Ro botics." The first two volumes have established abackqround for studying the dynamics and control of robots. While the first book was exclusive ly devoted to the dynamics of active spatial mechanisms, the second treated the problems of the dynamic control of manipulation robots. In contrast to the first two books, where recursive computer-aided me thods for setting robot dynamic equations where described, this mono graph presents a new approach to the formation of robot dynamics. The goal is to achieve the real-time model computation using up-to-date mi crocomputers. The presented concept could be called a numeric-symbolic, or analytic, approach to robot modelling. It will be shown that the generation of analytical robot model may give new excellent possibili ties concerning real-time applications. It is of essential importance in synthesizing the algorithms for nonadaptive and adaptive control of manipulation robots. If should be pointed out that the high computational efficiency has been achieved by off-line computer-aided preparation of robot equations. The parameters of a specified robot must be given in advance. This, af ter each significant variation in robot structure (geometrical and dy namical parameters), we must repeat the off-line stage. Thus is why the numerical procedures will always have their place in studying the dy namic properties of robotic systems. This monograph is organized in 5 chapters."