Historical Perspectives on Force Control of Robot Manipulators

This paper presents historical perspectives on the force control algorithms for robot manipulators to deal with environment. From the compliance control for a robot manipulator to deal with the environment to bilinear force control, a variety of force control algorithms are presented with their characteristics. The most important issue of force control is how to deal with environment and ensure force tracking performance. Problems of which force control algorithms should solve are unknown environment stiffness and position, force tracking capability, and uncertainties in robot dynamics. Analysis on how to deal with those problems by major force control algorithms is elaborated. Finally, a new force control algorithm, bilinear force control is presented to overcome the aforementioned problems.