Fast and high-quality planar contour following in the presence of large position uncertainties

This paper shows how to improve the following of a planar contour with a force controlled robot using a model of the contour (i.e. how to make the task execution faster, of higher quality and more robust to large position uncertainties of the contour). The contour description is differential (it consists of curvature as a function of arc length) and Euclidean invariant as it does not change if the location of the contour is changed. A contour description is also identified from sensor measurements and matched online with the modelled contour description in order to identify the point in the model corresponding to the real contact point. The modelled curvature in this point is used for trajectory generation. Experiments have proved the usefulness of this approach