ADAPTIVE-CONTROL OF MANIPULATORS HANDLING HAZARDOUS-WASTE

This article focuses on developing a robot control system capable of m eeting hazardous waste handling application requirements, and presents as a solution an adaptive strategy for controlling the mechanical imp edance of kinematically redundant manipulators. The proposed controlle r is capable of accurate end-effector impedance control and effective redundancy utilization, does not require knowledge of the complex robo t dynamic model or parameter values for the robot or the environment, and is implemented without calculation of the robot inverse kinematic transformation. Computer simulation results are given for a four degre e of freedom redundant robot under adaptive impedance control. These r esults indicate that the proposed controller is capable of successfull y performing important tasks in robotic waste handling applications.