A Unified Control Architecture for Macro-Micro Manipulation using a Active Remote Center of Compliance for Manufacturing Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified control architecture for macro-micro manipulators that significantly enhances interaction control bandwidth and adaptability, validated through various industrial manipulation experiments.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel control architecture integrating macro manipulators into active interaction control, doubling bandwidth and simplifying adaptation with surrogate models.

Findings

Control bandwidth increased by 2.1 times over existing methods.

Surrogate models enable easier hardware adaptation.

Validated effectiveness through collision, force trajectory, and assembly experiments.

Abstract

Macro-micro manipulators combine a macro manipulator with a large workspace, such as an industrial robot, with a lightweight, high-bandwidth micro manipulator. This enables highly dynamic interaction control while preserving the wide workspace of the robot. Traditionally, position control is assigned to the macro manipulator, while the micro manipulator handles the interaction with the environment, limiting the achievable interaction control bandwidth. To solve this, we propose a novel control architecture that incorporates the macro manipulator into the active interaction control. This leads to a increase in control bandwidth by a factor of 2.1 compared to the state of the art architecture, based on the leader-follower approach and factor 12.5 compared to traditional robot-based force control. Further we propose surrogate models for a more efficient controller design and easy adaptation to hardware changes. We validate our approach by comparing it against the other control schemes in different experiments, like collision with an object, following a force trajectory and industrial assembly tasks.