A decentralized control strategy for redundant manipulator based on hierarchical impedance

Summary form only given as follows. This paper describes a control strategy for redundant manipulator with a large degree-of-freedom motion. Here we introduce a hierarchical impedance control in order to simplify the control system. The proposed controller consists of several subsystem and the dynamic force propagates along them. This means that the total motion of the manipulator can be controlled arbitrary according to the propagated force. The controller of each subsystem is constructed independently of the total number of degree-of-freedom motion and the motion characteristic of each subsystem is determined by using the information of the neighbor subsystems. This is one of the remarkable points of our approach and results in a simplification of the total controller. In order to realize a decentralized control, we resolve a redundant manipulator into sub-manipulators (subsystems), and impedance control is applied to each subsystem by using propagated force from adjoining subsystems. We call this control the hierarchical impedance control.