3D Surface-Tracking with a robot manipulator

This paper presents incremental research in Surface Tracking with a robot manipulator. Surface tracking is an important operation in self-teaching and exploratory tasks in unknown environments, and to cope with inaccurate workspace and environment modeling. The paper addresses the problem of 3D Surface-Tracking in contact, where the main concern is the angle formed between the end-effector and the surface. This study constitutes a first approach to the more general and important problem of surface following in contact. The new contribution is the 3D tracking operation based on a new alignment control algorithm using real-time contact force feedback. Simulations, and experimental results using the PUMA 560 manipulator demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm. This paper also presents a method for tool-tip contact frame calibration using forces/moments data.