Adaptive impedance control of robot manipulators with parametric uncertainty for constrained path-tracking

Abstract

The main impedance control schemes in the task space require accurate knowledge of the kinematics and dynamics of the robotic system to be controlled. In order to eliminate this dependence and preserve the structure of this kind of algorithms, this paper presents an adaptive impedance control approach to robot manipulators with kinematic and dynamic parametric uncertainty. The proposed scheme is an inverse dynamics control law that leads to the closed-loop system having a PD structure whose equilibrium point converges asymptotically to zero according to the formal stability analysis in the Lyapunov sense. In addition, the general structure of the scheme is composed of continuous functions and includes the modeling of most of the physical phenomena present in the dynamics of the robotic system. The main feature of this control scheme is that it allows precise path tracking in both free and constrained spaces (if the robot is in contact with the environment). The proper behavior of the closed-loop system is validated using a two degree-of-freedom robotic arm. For this benchmark good results were obtained and the control objective was achieved despite neglecting non modeled dynamics, such as viscous and Coulomb friction.