On-line parameter identification and adaptive control of rigid robots using base reaction forces/torques

The reaction forces at the base of a robotic manipulator contain model parameter information which can be acquired and used towards improving manipulation performance. The on-line extraction of this parameter content and its use towards improving the performance of model-based trajectory tracking controllers is examined. A modified version of a previously proposed nonlinear adaptive control scheme for rigid robots is also considered and the above source of information is used to drive its parameters update law. Simulation studies based on the model of a multilink rigid robot are employed to demonstrate these approaches.