ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the state of the art of the control of compliant motion. It covers early ideas and later improvements, as well as new control concepts and trends. Contact with the environment imposes kinematic and dynamic constraints on the motion of the end effector. One of the most difficult aspects of dynamic modeling concerns the interactions of bodies in contact. In contact with a rigid hypersurface, robot motion is prevented in the direction orthogonal to the surface. The contact transition can be considered stable if the contact is not lost after the manipulator meets the environment. A stable contact transition can be characterized by nonzero force, positive penetration of manipulator end point into environment, nonappearance of bouncing. One of the most common approaches for word modeling in robot programs is based on coordinate frames. Program instructions are required to allow the programmer to manage impedance control parameters and monitor and handle various contact exceptions.
