A simplified hybrid force/position controller method for the walking robots

Force and position sensors have been widely used in robots to realize compl iance and precise control. Traditional force! position control methods were studied and developed by the inverse dynamics for decades. Generally speak ing, the controller contains two parts: One is the error-driven part that g uarantees system stability; another is the identification model of inverse dynamics that can compensate for system influence. In practical control eng ineering, a system inverse dynamics or its identification model is not easy to obtain, even when using nonlinear estimation methods. Moreover, the com plicated control algorithm cannot be implemented in on-board microprocessor s because of the limited speed and memory. Thus, a simplified control metho d using a forward system model is introduced in this paper. Since the direc t dynamics of the system can be more easily obtained than the inverse dynam ics, this, in turn, simplifies the control structure and increases control speed. Therefore, the proposed control policy has a wider practical applica tion.