Sensorless Impedance Control of Micro Finger Using Coprime Factorization

Soft robots are attracting attention as next-generation robots because they enable flexible movement. The micro finger is a soft robot that can bend and is small and can grasp objects of various shapes, so it is expected to be applied to surgical robots. However, because it is small, sensors cannot be attached, making it difficult to measure force. This paper proposes impedance control of the tip of a micro finger by estimating the tip force with an observer. The control system is designed using coprime factorization and Youla-Kucera parameterization by operator theory. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed through experiments.