To solve the constant contact force control problem between the end tool of a 5 degrees of freedom hybrid optical mirror processing robot and a workpiece, an adaptive impedance control method for the pneumatic servo-polishing system of the robot is designed. Firstly, the pneumatic servo-polishing control system at the end of the robot is set up. Secondly, the impedance control method for contact force is investigated based on the mathematical model of the pneumatic servo-polishing control system. Additionally, the causes of steady-state error of impedance control are analyzed theoretically, and the calculation method for steady-state error of impedance control is deduced. Finally, an indirect adaptive impedance controller based on Lyapunov Stability Principle is developed to estimate the environmental stiffness and position online, so as to reduce steady-state error and realize the tracking of polishing contact force. The simulation and experimental results suggest that the adaptive impedance control method not only recognizes that the contact force of the robot is relatively constant during the polishing process but also has high control accuracy for the force, fast-tracking response for the abrupt force, and considerable adaptability to the variable environmental stiffness.

This paper presents adaptive impedance controllers with adaptive sliding mode friction compensation for anthropomorphic artificial hand. A five-fingered anthropomorphic artificial hand with multi-sensory and Field-Programmable Gate Arra (FPGA)-based control hardware and software architecture is designed to fulfill the requirements of the grasping force controller. In order to improve the force-tracking precision, the indirect adaptive algorithm was applied to estimate the parameters of the environment. The generalized momentum-based disturbance observer was applied to estimate the contact force from the torque sensor. Based on the sensors of the finger, an adaptive sliding mode friction compensation algorithm was utilized to improve the accuracy of the position control. The performances of the force-tracking impedance controller and position-based joint impedance control for the five-fingered anthropomorphic artificial hand are analyzed and compared in this paper. Furthermore, the performances of the force-tracking impedance controller with environmental parameters adaptive estimation and without environmental parameters estimation are analyzed and compared. Experimental results prove that accurate force-tracking and stable torque/force response under uncertain environments of unknown stiffness and position can be achieved with the proposed adaptive force-tracking impedance controller with friction compensation on five-finger artificial hand.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper focus on the adaptive impedance control of robot manipulators with consideration of joint flexibility and actuator dynamics. Controller design for this problem is difficult because each joint of the robot has to be described by a fifth-order cascade differential equation. In this paper, a backstepping-like procedure incorporating the model reference adaptive control strategy is employed to construct the impedance controller. The function approximation technique is applied to estimate time-varying uncertainties in the system dynamics. The proposed control law is free from the calculation of the tedious regressor matrix, which is a significant simplification in implementation. Closed-loop stability and boundedness of internal signals are proved by the Lyapunov-like analysis with consideration of the function approximation error. Computer simulation results are presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed scheme.