Arm-manipulator coordination for load sharing using compliant control

Arm-manipulator coordination is a new coordination problem in robotics. Human arm-manipulator coordination is superior to both arm-arm coordination and manipulator-manipulator coordination. Likewise, it is expected to have powerful impacts on many applications in the manufacturing, service, and construction industries. This paper introduces this problem and investigates the coordination using a compliant control method. There are several problems in this scheme. First, the stability problem is studied using the Routh-Hurwitz criterion. Then, a very important aspect of the arm-manipulator coordination problem, load sharing, is investigated. Experimental analysis proves the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.