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Force Control

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Springer Handbook of Robotics

Abstract

A fundamental requirement for the success of a manipulation task is the capability to handle the physical contact between a robot and the environment. Pure motion control turns out to be inadequate because the unavoidable modeling errors and uncertainties may cause a rise of the contact force, ultimately leading to an unstable behavior during the interaction, especially in the presence of rigid environments. Force feedback and force control becomes mandatory to achieve a robust and versatile behavior of a robotic system in poorly structured environments as well as safe and dependable operation in the presence of humans. This chapter starts from the analysis of indirect force control strategies, conceived to keep the contact forces limited by ensuring a suitable compliant behavior to the end effector, without requiring an accurate model of the environment. Then the problem of interaction tasks modeling is analyzed, considering both the case of a rigid environment and the case of a compliant environment. For the specification of an interaction task, natural constraints set by the task geometry and artificial constraints set by the control strategy are established, with respect to suitable task frames. This formulation is the essential premise to the synthesis of hybrid force/motion control schemes.

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Abbreviations

DOF:

degree of freedom

PD:

proportional-derivative

PI:

policy iteration

RCC:

remote center of compliance

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, PRISMA Lab, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125, Napoli, Italy

    Luigi Villani Prof

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300, Box 02420, 3001, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium

    Joris De Schutter PhD

Authors
  1. Luigi Villani Prof
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  2. Joris De Schutter PhD
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Luigi Villani Prof or Joris De Schutter PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. PRISMA Lab, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Universitá degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125, Napoli, Italy, Via Claudio 21

    Bruno Siciliano Prof.

  2. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, 94305-9010, Stanford, CA, USA

    Oussama Khatib Prof.

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Villani, L., De Schutter, J. (2008). Force Control. In: Siciliano, B., Khatib, O. (eds) Springer Handbook of Robotics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30301-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30301-5_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23957-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30301-5

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