A robust impedance matching scheme for emulation of robots

An emulating robot is required to verify functionality of a space robot, such as the special purpose dextrous manipulator (SPDM). Control of the emulating robot is very challenging; it requires matching the contact force frequency-response of the emulating robot and that of the space robot, attenuating sensitivity to force sensor noise, while maintaining contact stability in spite of uncertain environment impedance. A μ synthesis based controller for minimizing the weighted distance between the realized and the specified force transfer functions, minimizing noise sensitivity, and maintaining closed-loop stability in spite of a broad variation of environment parameters (stiffness and damping) is proposed. Experimental results demonstrate robust performance of the controller.