Loop Shaping of Hybrid Motion Control with Contact Transition

TL;DR

This paper introduces a loop shaping-based hybrid control scheme for safe, sensor-free contact transition in robotic motion control, demonstrated through experiments with soft, penetrable objects like grapes.

Contribution

It presents a novel hybrid control approach that enables safe contact transitions without force sensors by using only input and displacement measurements.

Findings

Effective contact handling without force sensors

Successful experiments with soft, penetrable objects

Enhanced safety in robotic contact scenarios

Abstract

A standard motion control with feedback of the output displacement cannot handle unforeseen contact with environment without penetrating into the soft, i.e. viscoelastic, materials or even damaging the fragile materials. Robotics and mechatronics with tactile and haptic capabilities, and in particular medical robotics for example, place special demands on the advanced motion control systems that should enable the safe and harmless contact transitions. This paper shows how the basic principles of loop shaping can be easily used to handle sufficiently stiff motion control in such a way that it is extended by sensor-free dynamic reconfiguration upon contact with the environment. A thereupon based hybrid control scheme is proposed. A remarkable feature of the developed approach is that no measurement of the contact force is required and the input signal and the measured output displacement are the only quantities used for design and operation. Experiments on 1-DOF actuator are shown, where the moving tool comes into contact with grapes that are soft and simultaneously penetrable.