Specifying and achieving passive compliance based on manipulator structure

Abstract

The possibility of achieving passive compliance via the structure of the manipulator itself is investigated. Focus is given to the large class of robots with nonbackdrivable actuators and in which actuator forces or torques are not easily interpreted as end-effector forces and torques. Further, a novel framework is presented for specifying the desired end-effector compliance for several tasks in terms of stiffness matrices. Several techniques for adjusting the manipulator stiffness matrix are also proposed.