Control of Constrained Motion of Robot

Abstract

In all the tasks we have considered up to now, the robot does not come into contact with the objects in the workspace, apart from those that are being transferred. However, this does not hold for the one of the most important industrial application of robots, namely, for the assembly of machine parts. In this case, the robot comes into contact with the objects in its environment and experiences actions of the external environmental forces. Similarly, in the processes like cutting, grinding, polishing and forging, the robot gripper has to act upon the given object by certain forces. These external forces acting on the robot gripper make the robot control much more complex. Hence, this chapter will be devoted to the synthesis of control for the robots involved in the realization of the tasks of this type. First our attention will be focused on the assembly process, as one of the most important and most delicate tasks in which the action of external forces is encountered. However, some general approaches to control of constrained motion of robots will be also presented.