Robust internal-force based impedance control for coordinating manipulators-theory and experiments

A robust internal force-based impedance control scheme for coordinating manipulators is introduced. Internal force-based impedance control enforces a relationship between the velocity of each manipulator and the internal force on the manipulated objects and requires no knowledge of the object dynamic model. Each manipulator's nonlinear dynamics is compensated by a robust auxiliary controller which is insensitive to robot-model uncertainty and payload variation. The controller is only weakly-dependent on each manipulator's inertia matrix. Stability of the system is analyzed. The scheme is computationally inexpensive and suitable for general-purpose microcomputer implementation. Rigorous experimental investigations are performed and the results presented which validate the proposed concepts.