Controlling a Constrained Robot Manipulator in the Presence of Uncertainty

In this paper, separate position and force controllers are developed from a decoupled model of a single n-joint nonredundant manipulator constrained by a rigid environment. Starting with models of the robot dynamics and constraints, a reduced order dynamic equation is developed with respect to a user defined set of variables. A new method of decomposing the force and position controls is then introduced. Using this decomposition, control strategies are then developed for a constrained robot manipulator in the presence of uncertainty. Specifically, adaptive and robust position controllers are formulated based on results for unconstrained robot manipulators given in [1] and [16].