Inverse dynamics control of multiple robot arms with flexible joints

Abstract

A nonlinear decoupling and linearizing feedback control for dynamic coordination of multiple robot arms with flexible joints handling an object constrained by the environment is considered. The method takes the manipulator dynamics and object dynamics into consideration as well as material constraints imposed on the system. An invariant solution for contact forces is provided by using a special weighting matrix. Control algorithms are developed for redundant manipulators. Two different approaches to make the method robust to parameter uncertainty, based either on the robust servomechanism theory or the Lyapunov theory of guaranteed stability of uncertain systems, are described. Numerical experiments demonstrate the high precision tracking capabilities of the method, prove that it can be implemented on fast contemporary computers, and show that the robustness to bounded modeling errors and external disturbances can be achieved. >