A Spatial Compliance Controller for Serial Manipulators

Abstract

Abstract The utility of robotic interactive control schemes such as stiffness control, admittance control and impedance control has been limited in part by the impedance selection problem. It is difficult to select appropriate impedance parameters to execute useful tasks. A spatial compliance controller is presented that simplifies compliance selection. The family of compliances is introduced with spatial transformation properties that simplify compliance parameter selection. A corresponding control law is derived assuming that the robot consists of a serial linkage of rigid links actuated by variable effort actuators. These results are a significant extension of previous results reported by Fasse (1995) and Fasse and Broenink (1995).