Impedance Control of Flexible Robot Manipulators

Abstract

An impedance control method for flexible robot manipulators was discussed. The impedance control objective was converted into tracking the end-effector impedance trajectories generated by the designed impedance dynamics. An ideal manifold related to the desired impedance trajectory tracking was designed to prescribe the desirable characteristics of the system. The impeadnce control scheme was derived to govern the motion of the robot system converging and remaining to the ideal manifold in the presence of parametric uncertainties. Using Lyapunov theory it was shown that under the impedance control scheme the motion of the robot is exponentially stable to the designed ideal manifold. Impedance control simulations were carried out using a two-link flexible robot manipulator. The result confirmed the effectiveness and good performance of the proposed adaptive impedance control method.