Adaptive coordinated motion control of two manipulator arms

An adaptive controller is presented for the coordinated motion control of two manipulators handling an object of unknown mass. Global convergence in tracking of both position and internal force trajectories of the object is proved, assuming perfect models for both manipulators. The computational algorithm is similar to the Newton-Euler inverse dynamics algorithm with complexity linear in the number of links in the manipulators. A significant feature of the control method is that both manipulators use the identical computational algorithm. Thus, the concept of master/slave relationship between the two manipulators is avoided. Two simulations are presented. The first assumes an ideal model for each manipulator. As expected, the controller is stable and provides excellent tracking ability of the manipulator. The second simulation investigates the effects of modeling errors in the mass properties of each arm. The position trajectories track very close to their desired values; however, they never completely converge.<<ETX>>