Contact and Physical Interaction
Neville Hogan
Abstract
This article reviews approaches to controlling robots undergoing physical contact and dynamic interaction with objects in the world. Conventional motion control is compared with a hybrid combination of position and force control. Several challenges are reviewed, most importantly the problems of instability: dynamic instability due to coupling, and static instability due to exerting force. Energetically passive interactive dynamics addresses the former; a minimum stiffness proportional to the force exerted addresses the latter. Actuators, which dominate the robot's interactive dynamics, are briefly surveyed, including series elastic, variable-stiffness, and emerging designs. A comparison with human performance is made. A bioinspired approach to controlling interactive dynamics (mechanical impedance or admittance) is reviewed. Robot configuration profoundly modulates apparent inertia, whereas force feedback control has minimal influence. Superimposing first-order mechanical impedances simplifies controlling many degrees of freedom. It manages redundancy while preserving passivity (unlike null-space projection methods) and enables seamless operation into and out of singular configurations.