Adaptive control of manipulators handling hazardous waste

This article focuses on developing a robot control system capable of meeting hazardous waste handling application requirements, and presents as a solution an adaptive strategy for controlling the mechanical impedance of kinematically redundant manipulators. The proposed controller is capable of accurate end-effector impedance control and effective redundancy utilization, does not require knowledge of the complex robot dynamic model or parameter values for the robot or the environment, and is implemented without calculation of the robot inverse transformation. Computer simulation results are given for a four degree of freedom redundant robot under adaptive impedance control. These results indicate that the proposed controller is capable of successfully performing important tasks in robotic waste handling applications. (author) 3 figs., 39 refs