Contact impedance estimation for robotic systems

In this paper, the problem of the on-line estimation of the mechanical impedance during the contact of a robotic system with an unknown environment is considered. Indeed, the knowledge of the mechanical properties could allow to improve the interaction between robotic devices and unstructured and unknown environments, e.g. in telemanipulation tasks. A single-point contact is considered and the (nonlinear) Hunt-Crossley model is taken into account and its better physical consistency in describing the behavior of soft materials is discussed in comparison with the classical (linear) Kelvin-Voigt model. Finally, the on-line estimation algorithm is described and experimental results presented.