Force control of robots with nonlinearities

This paper explores two practical issues related to the force control of manipulators. The first issue examined is how system stability is effected by commonly occurring manipulator nonlinearities, such as sampled-data, control signal saturation and slip-stick friction. It is shown that discretely implemented force control algorithms can drive the feedback force controlled manipulator into a limit cycle, even for a very small sampling period that by far satisfies Shannon's sampling theorem. The bounds of stability are enhanced by the presence of control signal saturation and slip stick friction. The second issue investigated is the inclusion of a high gain inner position loop as a means to minimize the unpredictability in the steady state error due to slip-stick friction. In order to support the theoretical conclusions, experiments were performed with the PUMP 560 industrial robot testbed facility developed at Colorado State University.