Robot Interaction Control Using Force and Vision

The problem of interaction control of a robot manipulator with a partially known environment is considered. The environment is a rigid object of known geometry but of unknown and possibly time varying position and orientation. An algorithm for online estimation of the object pose is presented, based on visual data provided by a camera. The estimation accuracy is improved during the interaction by using also force and joint position measurements. The proposed method can be exploited to implement any kind of interaction control strategy. A simulation case study is considered for the case of impedance control of a robot manipulator in contact with a planar surface