Integration of force strategies and natural-admittance control

When mating parts are brought together, small misalignments must be accommodated by responding to contact forces. Using force feedback, a robot may sense contact forces during assembly and invoke a response to guide the parts into their correct mating positions. The proposed approach integrates force-guided strategies into Hogan's impedance control. Stability of both geometric convergence and of contact dynamics are achieved. Geometric convergence is accomplished more reliably than through the use of impedance control alone, and such a convergence is achieved more rapidly than through the use of force-guided strategies alone. This work was published in the ICRA 1995 video proceedings.