A Force Control Joint for Robot–Environment Contact Application

Accurate and robust force control is still a great challenge for robot–environment contact applications, such as in situ repair, polishing, and assembly. To tackle this problem, this paper proposes a force control joint with a parallel configuration, including two identical four-bar linkages driven by linear springs to push up the output end of the joint, and a parallel-connected pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) to pull down its output end. In the new design, the link length of the linkages will be optimized to make the difference between the profile of the linkage and that of PAM constant within the limits of the joint given the force–displacement profile of PAM at a certain level of its input pressure. Furthermore, PAM's nonlinear hysteresis effect, which is believed to limit the accuracy of the joint's force control, will be represented by a new dynamics model that is to be developed from the classical Bouc–Wen (BW) hysteresis model. Simulation tests are then conducted to reveal that the adoption of the PAM hysteresis model yields improved accuracy of force control, and a series of curve trajectory tracking experiments are performed on a six-joint universal industrial robot to verify that the parallel force control joint is capable to enhance force control accuracy for robot contact applications.