Interactive Robot Compliance Control Incorporating Environment Information

In this paper, the compliance control of a human interactive robot is designed by incorporating environment information with the measured contact force. The proposed controller implements an adaptive impedance-like filtering action according to the measured contact force to achieve the compliance function when the robot contacts the surrounding objects. The adaptation of the impedance is designed using the computed potential field based on the surrounding environment so that the robot can operate both safely and efficiently in the working space. A three-axis Cartesian based robot is employed to validate the proposed control algorithm, and assuming that inexact information about the environment is given. Experimental results indicate that the proposed controller can improve the trajectory tracking efficiency before contact, while maintaining desired level of contact force even if the digital map information of the environment is inaccurate.