A Force/Motion Control Approach Based on Trajectory Planning for Industrial Robots With Closed Control Architecture

Most industrial robots are provided by the manufacturer with a controller that cannot be modified by the user (e.g. a standard PID). This arrangement is commonly referred to as closed control architecture, since it is not possible to program arbitrary control laws. For the implementation of novel algorithms, it is on the contrary necessary to employ an open control architecture, which allows programming any control scheme. For that reason, it is customary to have testbeds that are made up of robot manipulators specially designed for this goal. Another disadvantage of the closed control architecture is that the controller provided by the manufacturer usually does not include a force control term since it allows only to program desired motion trajectories. To overcome these drawbacks without physically modifying the closed control architecture, this contribution presents a novel approach to simultaneously follow position and force trajectories by employing only motion planning, i.e. only by choosing the desired position trajectory. The approach is especially well suited for DC motor actuators with large gear reduction ratios as those of many industrial robots. The convergence of the manipulator position and applied force depends exclusively on the performance of the controller provided by the manufacturer. The approach is tested on a dual-arm cooperative manipulation system made up of two ABB IRB-2400 industrial robots with closed control architecture.