A model-free approach to vibration suppression for intrinsically elastic robots

Robots with joint elasticity find increasing interest in many research areas. A common design goal is to achieve as little mechanical joint damping as possible. To still achieve system damping often control systems are used. Here, we present a model-free approach to achieve damping via exploiting the kinetic to potential energy transformation process of the robot mass and the joint elasticity. The controller acts in an energetically passive way and is applicable to multi-joint systems. The theoretical findings and simulations are substantiated by experiments on the DLR Hand Arm System.