Dynamic Analysis and Sliding Mode Impedance Control of a Robot Manipulator Subject to Impact/Contact With an Arbitrary Environment

In this paper, dynamic equations of a robot manipulator subject to compliant contact/impact with the environment are derived using nonlinear elastodynamic approach. Then, a sliding mode impedance algorithm is proposed to control compliant impact/contact dynamics of the robot manipulator with an arbitrary environment. Impact/contact phenomenon can be regarded as a perturbation due to an abrupt change of system’s velocity. Thus the need to have robust characteristics in such systems especially after impact seems to be evident. The performance of the proposed controller is compared against standard second order impedance controller through numerical simulation studies. Finally, simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.