Impedance control of robots using voltage control strategy

Impedance control provides a unified solution for the position and force control of robot manipulators. The dynamic behavior of a robotic system in response to environment is prescribed by an impedance model formed as Thevenin model. This model is certain and linear while the robot manipulator is highly nonlinear, coupled, and uncertain. Therefore, impedance control must overcome nonlinearity, coupling, and uncertainty to convert the robotic system to the impedance model. To overcome these problems, this paper presents a novel impedance control for electrically driven robots, which is free from the manipulator dynamics. The novelty of this paper is the use of voltage control strategy to develop the impedance control. Compared with the commonly used impedance control, which is based on the torque control strategy, it is computationally simpler, more efficient, and robust. The mathematical verification and simulation results show the effectiveness of the control method.