A Force Control Method with Positive Feedback for Industrial Finishing Applications

Robot force control is useful in industrial finishing applications such as polishing and deburring. The standard position-based force control method involves an integrator in the controller, and is usually slow in response and has stability issue. A force control method with positive feedback is proposed in this paper. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that it has significant improvements compared with conventional integral force control method. The proposed method is implemented in a self-developed end-effector and deburring experiment is conducted on a workpiece. Results show that the performance of the robot manipulator meets the industry requirements and the outcome is more consistent compared with human operators.