Passivity-based Control of Robot Manipulators Subject to Constraints

Abstract

This paper presents a passivity-based controller design capable of achieving autonomous obstacle avoidance for robot manipulators subject to joint position and joint rate constraints. The control objectives are achieved by exploiting the passivity properties of the system and utilizing barrier function ideas to reshape the control Lyapunov function. The final control Lyapunov function is reminiscent of those used in the artificial potential field method. 1