Force/moment accommodation control for tele-operated manipulators performing contact tasks in stiff environment

Analyses the performance and stability of a force/moment accommodation (FMA) loop closed around a joint rate controller. A synthesis methodology is given to select the gains of the accommodation controller. The bandwidth and coupling limitations of the FMA control architecture are discussed. It is shown that the closed-loop FMA exhibits natural decoupling when FMA acts on the "transpose Jacobian rate" controller. The theoretical developments in the paper are supported by simulation and experimental results.