Stochastic compliance in robot-based assembly

The majority of industrial robots currently employed in industry are position controlled devices. They are mainly used for simple tasks such as pick and place, and spot welding where the manipulator position is not constrained by the task geometry. At present one of the difficulties in the employment of industrial robots for human-like operations is the high cost of integrating them in the production line. Complaint motion control of the robot arm can reduce the integration cost significantly and increase the dexterity of the robot. The work reported in this paper aims to develop an active compliance system based on a technique referred to as stochastic force sensing (SFS). In the SFS approach, the current variation is introduced into the robot control scheme as a stochastic process