Human-like impedance and minimum effort control for natural and efficient manipulation

Humans incorporate and switch between learnt neuromotor strategies while performing complex tasks. Towards this purpose, kinematic redundancy is exploited in order to achieve optimized performance. Inspired by the superior motor skills of humans, in this paper, we investigate a combined free motion and interaction controller in a certain class of robotic manipulation. In this bimodal controller, kinematic degrees of redundancy are adapted according to task-suitable dynamic costs. The proposed algorithm attributes high priority to minimum-effort controller while performing point to point free space movements. Once the robot comes in contact with the environment, the Tele-Impedance, common mode and configuration dependent stiffness (CMS-CDS) controller will replicate the human's estimated endpoint stiffness and measured equilibrium position profiles in the slave robotic arm, in real-time. Results of the proposed controller in contact with the environment are compared with the ones derived from Tele-Impedance implemented using torque based classical Cartesian stiffness control. The minimum-effort and interaction performance achieved highlights the possibility of adopting human-like and sophisticated strategies in humanoid robots or the ones with adequate degrees of redundancy, in order to accomplish tasks in a certain class of robotic manipulation.