Joint acceleration feedback control for robots: analysis, sensing and experiments

Independent joint control for robots is enhanced to suppress the dynamic couplings by incorporating an acceleration feedback loop that is designed in terms of its stability and ability in resisting the dynamic coupling disturbances. The sensing and modeling of joint acceleration via linear accelerometers is dealt from the viewpoint of practical implementation. Extensive experiments are conducted on a three-link direct drive robot, to mainly investigate the ability of the independent joint controller with the acceleration loop in resisting the coupling torque, and demonstrating the enhanced trajectory tracking performance. Results are given against the ones obtained by conventional independent joint control without the acceleration feedback control. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.