Transpose Jacobian-based controllers represent
an attractive approach to robot control in Cartesian space. These
controllers attempt to drive the robot end-effector posture to a
specified desired position and orientation without solving either the inverse
kinematics nor computing the robot inverse Jacobian. A wide class
of transpose Jacobian-based regulators obtained from the energy shaping plus
damping injection technique is analyzed in this paper. Our main
theoretical contribution is the introduction of a novel analysis which
does not invoke any assumption on Jacobian singularities to ensure
local asymptotic stability for a family of nonredundant robots. The
performance of four transpose Jacobian-based regulators is illustrated via experimental
tests conducted on a direct-drive vertical arm.