Implicit Euler Discrete-Time Set-Valued Admittance Control for Impact–Contact Force Control

Abstract

Admittance control is a commonly used strategy for regulating robotic systems, such as quadruped and humanoid robots, allowing them to respond compliantly to contact forces during interactions with their environments. However, it can lead to instability and unsafe behaviors, such as snapping back and overshooting due to torque saturation from impacts with unknown stiffness environments. This article introduces a novel admittance controller that ensures stable force control after impacting unknown stiffness environments by leveraging the differentiability of impact–contact forces. The controller is mathematically represented by a differential algebraic inclusion (DAI) comprising two interdependent set-valued loops. The first loop employs set-valued first-order sliding mode control (SMC) to limit input torque postimpact. The second loop utilizes the multivariable super-twisting algorithm to mitigate unstable motion caused by impact forces when interacting with unknown stiffness environments. Implementing this proposed admittance control in digital settings presents challenges due to the interconnected structure of the two set-valued loops, unlike implicit Euler discretization methods for set-valued SMCs. To facilitate implementation, this article offers a new algorithm for implicit Euler discretization of the DAI. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed admittance controller outperforms state-of-the-art methods.