Estimation of environment models using vector field and its application to robot's contact tasks

Abstract

Earlier biological studies on the isolated spinal cord of the frog suggested that the premotor circuitry of the frog spinal cord is organized in a number of control modules, and the complex posture motion patterns are generated through the vectorial summation of these vector field forms of modules. Motivated by this study, in this paper, the authors suggest that, when a robot is performing the mechanical contact tasks on the uncertain environment, the internal model of the environment may also be represented in the form of a vector field. The authors show that such kind of environment model can be obtained by integrating the information of a robot's position and interaction force. The authors examine the effectiveness of this environment model in the robot's contact tasks via experiment and computer simulation.