Hybrid position/force control of robot manipulators based on acceleration controller

A simple high-performance hybrid position/force control that is based on the acceleration tracing orientation method (ATOM) is proposed. From the analysis of ATOM, it is pointed out that precise acceleration control is a key to improve the performance of the motion of the robot. The realization of a strict acceleration controller, however, is almost impossible by the conventional disturbance compensation methods. Recent research on a disturbance observed shows the realization of the acceleration controller. Compared with the inverse dynamics, the observer is simple and robust against parameter variation. Moreover, the disturbance observer can perform parallel computation in each joint by the same algorithm. ATOM was applied to a three-degrees-of-freedom robot to show the effectiveness of the ATOM experimentally.<>