Exploiting redundancy to reduce impact force

This paper presents two strategies for reducing the impact force resulting from the collision of a kinematically redundant manipulator with its environment, where it is assumed that the impact event has some finite duration. The first, animpact control strategy, involves adding torques to the joints of the redundant manipulator to impede motion into the environment with which it is colliding. The second, animpact planning strategy, involves choosing the configuration best suited for minimizing the impact force from an impact event, the approximate location of which is known ahead of time. Simulated results from both strategies are presented and discussed, and it is shown that both are successful in minimizing the impact force resulting from planned and unplanned collisions.