Robust impedance control

Industrial robots are confronted with performing tasks where a contact with their environment occurs. Therefore, there is a need for control algorithms with position tracking performance and force control ability. Up to date many algorithms have been proposed which deal with robot motion and force control. In this paper a robust impedance control law based on an attractive theory of sliding mode is proposed. The control law guarantees a robot predefined impedance and therefore a force regulation based on the possessed impedance properties is feasible. The proposed impedance controller is used in a force-tracking task. Experimental results on a simple 1-DOF mechanism and 3-DOF direct drive robot mechanism are reported.