Abstract
This work is dedicated to the analysis of the application of active impedance control for the realisation of three objectives simultaneously: velocity regulation in free motion, impact attenuation and finally force tracking. At first, a brief analysis of active impedance control is made, deducing the value of each parameter in order to achieve the three objectives. It is demonstrated that the system may be made overdamped with the adequate selection of the parameters if the characteristics of the environment are known, avoiding high overshoots of force during the impact. The second and most important contribution of this work is an additional measure for impact control in the case when the characteristics of the environment are unknown. It consists in switching among different values of the parameters of the impedance in order to dissipate faster the energy of the system, limiting the peaks of force and avoiding losses of contact. The optimal switching criteria are deduced for every parameter in order to dissipate the energy of the system as fast as possible. The results are verified in simulation. © 2011 Cambridge University Press.
