ROBUST GENERALIZED IMPEDANCE CONTROL OF ROBOTS FOR COMPLIANT MANIPULATION

Compliant manipulation requires the robot to follow a motion trajetory and to exert a force profile while making compliant contact with a dy namic environment. For this purpose, a generalized impedance in the ta sk space consisting of a second-order function relating motion errors and interaction force errors is introduced such that force tracking ca n be achieved. Using variable structure model reading control, the gen eralized impedance is realized in the presence of both parametric unce rtainties and external disturbances. The proposed control method is ap plied to the prismatic joint of a SCARA robot for inserting a printed circuit board into an edge connector socket. It is suggested that an a ssembly strategy that involves a sequence of planned target generalize d impedances can enable the task to be executed in a desirable manner. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated through experiments by comparing the results with those obtained using a model-based cont rol implementation as well as the traditional impedance control method .