On the force control problem for flexible joint manipulators

It is shown, using a singular perturbation model of the elastic joint manipulator dynamics and the concept of corrective control. how force control techniques developed for rigid manipulators can be extended to the flexible joint case. It is shown that the overall control law can be implemented in an inner loop/outer loop structure, where the inner loop is a nonlinear control that linearizes the system restricted to a suitable integral manifold in state space and the outer loop is a linear control that can be designed independently of the nonlinear inner loop, using any number of force control schemes designed for rigid manipulators to extend all of the standard techniques for force control of rigid manipulators to the flexible joint case, including hybrid position/force control, impedance control, or any other suitable design.>