Singularity avoidance by inputting angular velocity to a redundant axis during cooperative control of a teleoperated dual-arm robot

This paper describes a procedure of avoiding singularity for a redundantly-driven, dual-arm, master-slave robotic system. In cooperative operation, the procedure starts with a periodic check if one of the dual arms is close to a singular configuration by examining the manipulability of the arm. If it is close to a singularity, then the system stops its cooperative operation and control scheme switches to redundancy control. Then the operator manipulates the joint until the arm moves away from the singular configuration by inputing angular velocity to a redundant axis. The fact that the operator can select a new arm configuration to avoid singular configuration in teleoperation is the contribution of this research. After moving away from the singular configuration, the system can resume cooperative operation. Because this manual operation applies to a redundant axis only (in the null space of the Jacobian matrix), it does not affect the current end-effector pose and force status. Experimental examples are provided to demonstrate the proposed method.