Mechanical Impedence Control of a Robot Arm by Virtual Internal Model Following Controller

Abstract The virtual internal model following control is an alternative architecture of a robotic servo system. It realizes a harmonized motion of a robot with its working environment based on external information detected by sensors. In the proposed system the virtual internal model describes a strategic motion of the controlled robot toward external information. The control law is designed so that a robot can follow the virtual internal model. This control architecture is applied to the mechanical impedance control of a robot. The mechanical impedance control is shown to be realized naturally by this control algorithm. The experimental results illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme