This text expands the author's doctoral dissertation, focusing on two issues: joint flexibility and kinematic redundancy. A number of effective controllers are developed in theory, based on consolidated approaches such as singular perturbation and passivity.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transf- mation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the ?eld and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and c- munities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider rangeof applications reaching across diverse research areas and scienti?c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, n- rosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an ab- dant source of stimulation and insights for the ?eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on thebasisoftheirsigni?canceandquality.Itisourhopethatthewiderdissemi- tion of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing ?eld.

Complete treatment of Cartesian impedance control problem for robots with flexible joints Includes several simulations, experiments, and applications, in which the proposed controllers are evaluated

Klappentext

This monograph is devoted to the classical topic of impedance control, which has recently seen renewed interest following advances in the mechanical design of lightweight robotic systems with improved actuation and sensing capabilities. After a general introduction into the topics of impedance control, the book focuses on two key issues, namely the treatment of joint flexibility and kinematic redundancy. Several control laws are developed based on mature approaches such as the singular perturbation theory, cascaded control theory, and passivity. The controllers are compared based on their conceptual potential as well as practical implementation issues. The evaluation was performed through several experiments with the DLR arms and the humanoid manipulator 'Justin'.

Inhalt
Modeling of Flexible Joint Robots.- Cartesian Impedance Control: The Rigid Body Case.- Nullspace Stiffness.- The Singular Perturbation Approach.- Controller Design Based on the Cascaded Structure.- A Passivity Based Approach.- Evaluation.- Applications.- Controller Comparison and Conclusions.