Unified force and motion adaptive-integral control of flexible robot manipulators

In this paper, we propose an adaptive nonlinear strategy for the motion and force control of manipulators with flexible joints. Our approach provides force control when in contact and robust motion control in its absence, all without the need for a control switch. This self-tuning behaviour for mixed contact/non-contact scenarios results from a unified formulation of force and motion control, with an integral transpose-based inverse kinematics core and adaptive update laws to cope with the manipulator flexibility and the contact stiffnesses. The global boundedness of all signals and the asymptotic stability of this controller are guaranteed via Lyapunov analysis. Finally, we validate its applicability experimentally by using low-cost hardware in a realistic mixed-contact scenario, demonstrating low computational demand.