Impedance control for variable stiffness mechanisms with nonlinear joint coupling

The current discussion on physical human robot interaction and the related safety aspects, but also the interest of neuro-scientists to validate their hypotheses on human motor skills with bio-mimetic robots, led to a recent revival of tendon-driven robots. In this paper, the modeling of tendon-driven elastic systems with nonlinear couplings is recapitulated. A control law is developed that takes the desired joint position and stiffness as input. Therefore, desired motor positions are determined that are commanded to an impedance controller. We give a physical interpretation of the controller. More importantly, a static decoupling of the joint motion and the stiffness variation is given. The combination of active (controller) and passive (mechanical) stiffness is investigated. The controller stiffness is designed according to the desired overall stiffness. A damping design of the impedance controller is included in these considerations. The controller performance is evaluated in simulation.