A model-based adaptive control scheme for coordinated control of multiple manipulators

When multiple manipulators are going to manipulate one target object coordinately, it is necessary to control both the motion of the object and the forces exerted at the endpoints of manipulators. It is important particularly to control the so-called internal force which does not affect the motion of the object. In this paper, a model-based adaptive control method for such coordinated control of multiple manipulators is proposed. The proposed method is a natural extension of the adaptive control scheme for geometrically endpoint constrained manipulators. It is proved theoretically that both the desired position trajectory of the object and the internal force converge to the desired ones respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by computer simulation using two planar 3-DOF manipulators