Application of Model Reference Adaptive Control to Industrial Robot Impedance Control

The paper deals with the application of model reference adaptive control to robot impedance control, which is actually a technique of steering the end-effector on a prescribed path and satisfying a prescribed dynamic relationship between the force and the end-effector position. Due to unknown parameters of the environment (stiffness, exact position), a model reference algorithm is proposed which differs from classical algorithms in its method of excitation. The results of the proposed procedure are illustrated by implementation on the ASEA IRb 6 industrial robot.