Development of a Safety- and Energy-Aware Impedance Controller for Collaborative Robots

In contexts where robots share their workspace with humans, safety is of utmost importance. Consequently, in recent years, a big impulse has been given to the design of human-friendly robots by involving both mechanical and control design aspects. Regarding controller design, this often involves introducing compliance and ensuring asymptotic stability using an interaction control scheme and passivity theory. Moreover, when human operators physically interact with the robot during work, strict safety measures become necessary with some of these including power and force limitations [1]. In this letter, a novel impedance control technique for collaborative robots is presented. The featured controller allows a safe human-robot interaction through energy and power limitations, assuring passivity through energy tanks. The proposed controller is evaluated with a KUKA LWR 4+ arm in a comanipulation environment.