Dynamic Modeling and PID Control of a 6-DOF Robotic Arm Using ROS and Gazebo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30871/jaee.v9i2.11027Keywords:
Gazebo, PID Control, Robotic Manipulator, ROS, URDFAbstract
This paper presents the dynamic modeling and control evaluation of a six degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) robotic manipulator. The manipulator was developed in the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo using a detailed URDF model with complete geometric and inertia parameters. Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controllers were tuned through ROS dynamic reconfiguration and tested under four payloads: 0; 0,19; 0,39; and 0,50 kg. Controller performance was assessed using rise time, settling time, overshoot, and steady-state error. The results show stable responses across all conditions, with no overshoot and near-zero steady-state errors. Increasing payloads generally led to longer rise and settling times, while joints aligned with gravity exhibited faster responses under heavier loads. These findings confirm that properly tuned PID controllers can maintain robust and accurate manipulator performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of ROS–Gazebo as an open-source platform for robotic control experimentation and future integration of adaptive or AI-based methods.
Downloads
References
[1] J. J. Craig, Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control, 4th ed. Boston, MA, USA: Pearson, 2018.
[2] K. J. Åström and R. M. Murray, Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton Univ. Press, 2010.
[3] M. Quigley et al., “ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System,” in Proc. ICRA Workshop Open Source Softw., Kobe, Japan, 2009.
[4] N. Koenig and A. Howard, “Design and use paradigms for Gazebo, an open-source multi-robot simulator,” in Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intell. Robots Syst., Sendai, Japan, 2004, pp. 2149–2154.
[5] B. Megalingam, S. V. Krishnan, and R. Ramesh, “Design and Simulation of a 6 DOF Robotic Arm using ROS and Gazebo,” Adv. Sci. Technol. Eng. Syst. J., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 25–32, 2020.
[6] Y. Zhang, X. Liu, and H. Li, “Controller performance evaluation for a 7-DOF robotic arm using ROS and Gazebo,” J. Intell. Robot. Syst., vol. 101, no. 3, pp. 1–15, 2021.
[7] G. Mengacci, G. Palli, and C. Melchiorri, “An open-source ROS-Gazebo toolbox for articulated and compliant robots,” Front. Robot. AI, vol. 8, pp. 1–12, 2021.
[8] S. Amiri, H. Soleimani, and M. Rahmani, “Trajectory tracking of robotic manipulators using PSO-tuned PID controllers in ROS–Gazebo,” Sensors, vol. 21, no. 17, pp. 1–15, 2021.
[9] Y. Chen, J. Wu, and Z. Liu, “A refined PID with fuzzy adaptation for 6-DOF robotic manipulators in ROS–Gazebo environment,” Sensors, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 1200–1215, 2022.
[10] H. Alkan et al., “Design and simulation of a multi-DOF robotic arm using ROS–Gazebo,” Int. J. Intell. Syst. Appl. Eng., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 45–53, 2024.
[11] L. Sciavicco and B. Siciliano, Modeling and Control of Robot Manipulators, Springer, 2000.
[12] V. Tinoco et al., “A Review of Advanced Controller Methodologies for Robotic Manipulators,” Int. J. Dyn. Control, vol. 13, no. 1, Jan. 2025.
[13] M. W. Spong, S. Hutchitson, and M. Vidyasagar, Robot Dynamics and Control, Wiley, 1989.
[14] Y. Kim and J. Kim, “A ROS-based Real-Time Control System for a Multi-DOF Robotic Arm with Gazebo Simulation,” in 2022 IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Automat. (ICRA), pp. 2534–2540.
[15] U. Kabir et al., “Performance Analysis of PID, PD and Fuzzy Controllers for Position Control of 3-Dof Robot Manipulator,” arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.12076, Oct. 2019.
[16] R. Mengacci et al., “An Open-Source ROS-Gazebo Toolbox for Simulating Robots with Compliant Actuators,” Front. Robot. AI, vol. 8, p. 713083, Aug. 2021.
[17] K. H. Ang, G. C. Y. Chong, and Y. Li, “PID control system analysis, design, and technology,” IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 559–576, Jul. 2005.
[18] Joseph, Stephen & Dada, Emmanuel & Abidemi, Afeez & Oyewola, David & Mohammed, Ban. (2022). Metaheuristic Algorithms for PID Controller Parameters Tuning: Review, Approaches and Open Problems. Heliyon. 8. e09399. 10.1016/j.heliyon. 2022.e09399.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) ) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
