Controller Design for a Robot's Safe Contact on an Object

Abstract

A robot manipulator is usually operated in two modes: free and constrained motion modes, depending on whether the robot is in contact with an environment or not. At the moment of contact, an impact occurs and can exert harmful effects to the robot or the object. In case of teleoperation, since a user may give an inadequately excessive velocity command to the slave due to insufficient visual information, the robot nay collide the object with an excessive speed and it possibly deteriorates the robot's performance causing vibrations and at worst, shortens its lifetime by its fracture. In this article, a new algorithm is proposed by introducing a command signal modification method on the basis of impedance control and validity of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by performing simulations and experiments.