Force Observer-Based Motion Adaptation and Adaptive Neural Control for Robots in Contact With Unknown Environments

This article proposes a spatial learning control system for robots to achieve a desired behavior during interacting with unknown environments. In contacting with the environment, the force is estimated by a force observer, so sensing devices are not required. Motivated by the human interaction versatility, the reference trajectory of the robot is updating with a learning law such that the interacting force can be maintained at a desired level. Compared with the trajectory iteration algorithm based on time domain, which requires maintaining a fixed motion speed for each iteration, the proposed method can remove this limitation and have better feasibility. The adaptive controller with neural networks can compensate the uncertain dynamics of the system and ensure the control accuracy. Through Lyapunov’s theory, the system is proved to be stable, and all the states are bounded. Comparative simulations and experiments are conducted on a robot platform to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.