Dynamic submovement composition for motion and interaction control of a robot manipulator

The paper presents a novel control approach for robot motion and interaction control that is inspired by neuroscientific studies on the intermittency nature of motor control in humans. Robot motion is generated by dynamic sequences of elementary motion units (called submovements) that, on-line modulated, can achieve accurate motion or else force regulation. The submovement sequence generation is grounded on the adaptive behaviour of four oscillators. Control performance in free space and in interaction with a purely elastic environment can be managed by dynamically changing features of motion units in the current sequence. The theoretical formulation of the control strategy and the application to robot point-to-point motion in free and in constrained space are provided in this paper. Finally, a comparative analysis with a traditional PD control is carried out.