The control of contact forces as related to safe robot/human interaction
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Nease, A.; Griffis, M.; Adsit, P.; Crane, C.
- Source
- IEEE ISR 2013 Robotics (ISR), 2013 44th International Symposium on. :1-6 Oct, 2013
- Subject
- Robotics and Control Systems
Payloads
Force
Fasteners
Manipulators
Actuators
Transmission line matrix methods
compliance
force control
kinestatic control
parallel manipulator
- Language
In industrial robotic applications, robots are segregated from humans. Light curtains are used to power-down the robot if a human comes into its workspace. For advanced interaction with humans, it will be necessary to control contact forces. During in-contact operations, a planar manipulator will have a reduced degree of freedom of motion (3-n) combined with an n degree of constraint contact wrench space. The problem is how to control the manipulator to simultaneously control the contact force/torque as it moves through its allowable motion space. This paper describes the Theory of Kinestatic Control whereby a compliant element is introduced between the manipulator end-effector and the environment. Knowledge of the compliant characteristics of this element allows for the determination of end-effector wrenches that will only cause movement without changing the contact force/torque and end-effector wrenches that will only cause changes in the contact force/torque while producing no motion. A sample implementation is presented.