Efficient Trajectory Planning and Compliant Control for Two Manipulators to Deform Flexible Materials

ABSTRACTCoordinating two robot manipulators to handle flexible materials has a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. However, this problem has not been seriously addressed until recently. The two robot manipulators have to follow complicated trajectories to maintain a minimum interaction force with the flexible beam. These trajectories are very complicated and not suitable for real time systems. In this article, three approximation methods of the optimal trajectories and a compliant control scheme are introduced. The first one uses a piece-wise linear approximation of the optimal trajectories, while the second one uses adaptive piece-wise linear approximation. The third method applies a continuous approximation of the optimal trajectories using an ellipsoid. Finally, a compliant motion scheme is proposed to reduce the interaction forces and moments in the first method. The stability of the proposed system is investigated. Experimental results encourage the proposed schemes.