An impedance control using a Finite Control Set Model Predictive Controller

The use of Electro-Mechanical Actuator to impact an environment is often criticized because of its presumably higher wear. This is due to the naturally high stiffness of the mechanical transmission, that leads to a hard-to-hard impact with the environment. This paper proposes a position-based impedance control using a Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control (FCS-MPC) controller to solve this problem. In comparison to a standard impedance controller, it can achieve the same impedance behavior in steady state, but the reduction of the mechanical losses and of the compression of the transmission are better during the transient. Furthermore, the trade-off between the mechanical losses and the transient time can be modified easily by changing the weighting factors of a cost function.