A Luenberger-style observer for robot manipulators with position measurements

This paper presents a novel Luenberger-style observer for robot manipulators with position measurements. Under the assumption that the state evolutions that are to be observed have bounded velocities, it is shown that the observer converges globally and exponentially. Comparisons and relations between the proposed observer and existing ones are discussed. The effectiveness of the observer is illustrated by a simulation for the Pendubot, an underactuated two-joint manipulator.