Predictive feedforward control for high speed tracking tasks

Abstract

Industrial robots often have to move with an accuracy of less than 1 mm at a speed of more than 1 m/s. Servoing of arbitrary paths therefore requires feedforward control using predictions of future timesteps of the desired motion. These predictions are obtained by camera images which allow the definition of current and future timesteps of the desired path. This is integrated in an architecture which allows learning of the feedforward controller without any knowledge of the dynamical model of the robot. Experiments are presented in which a robot with an endeffector mounted camera is servoed along a curved line.