Development of force control device with high power and high resolution

A force control device with high power and high resolution is developed. It consists of a spring and a small force actuator which are connected in parallel between the base plate and the output plate. By installing this device into a tip of a high power industrial robot, large forces with high resolution can be achieved under the existence of static friction. In this paper, the principle of force control device is verified by using a simple two d.o.f. experimental setup. From experimental results, the effectiveness of the developed control device and its control algorithm is verified.