AN INVESTIGATION OF IMPEDANCE CONTROL FOR ROBOT MANIPULATORS

This article documents investigations into impedance control carried o ut on a direct drive robot manipulator Both linear and nonlinear versi ons of impedance controllers have been investigated The two impedance controllers have been simulated numerically and implemented on Carleto n University's direct drive robot. The performance of these controller s is experimentally compared in terms of force trajectory following an d contact stability. The article highlights the practical and experime ntal limitations of the proposed methods. Furthermore, the experimenta l results indicate that the controller design, the manipulator kinemat ics, and the desired task must all be considered and evaluated simulta neously.