Simultaneous Measurement of Shape and Mechanical Impedance of an Object.

Abstract

Desyncronized tele-robotics by virtual reality technology has been studied by many researchers. This approach does not couple an operator and a slave robot directly like bilateral master-slave teleoperation system, so the smart search of the remote environment by autonomous slave robots is strongly required. In this paper, we propose a method which can measure the mechanical impedance and shape of a target object and environment with the robot under impedance control by adding perturbation to the virtual trajectory. First, it is considered what kind of perturbation is necessary and realistic for that purpose. Then, we show that the robot with a single force sensor is insufficient for simultaneous estimation of mechanical impedance and shape, and that the measurement of force at plural points on the contact surface is essenstial. The validity of the method is checked by a 2DOF real robot.