Abstract
In this paper we address the problem of controlling multiple robots manipulating a rigid object cooperatively when the robots and load parameters are uncertain. We propose a controller that takes into account the dynamics of both the load and the manipulators. The linearity of the dynamics of the robots and the load, with respect to the unknown parameters, is exploited during the derivation of the parameter adaptation scheme. In order to design a control and update laws that do not require the measurements of the of the joint accelerations or the load acceleration, the dynamics of both the robots and the load are filtered through a stable first order filter. Then two prediction error vectors are defined as the difference between the measured filtered dynamics and the predicted filtered dynamics of both the robots and the load. The least-squares estimation method is used to estimate the parameters of the multi-robot system from the prediction errors. We then develop a controller that is based on the cancellation of the nonlinearities. The proposed controller guarantees global asymptotic tracking of the robot and load trajectories and also guarantees the asymptotic tracking of the internal forces trajectories.
Date of this Version
5-1-1991