Anthropomorphic Soft Robotics- from Torque Control to Variable Intrinsic Compliance

Abstract The paper gives an overview on the developments at the German Aerospace Center DLR towards anthropomorphic robots which not only try to approach the force and velocity performance of humans, but also have similar safety and robust-ness features based on a compliant behaviour. We achieve this compliance either by joint torque sensing and impedance control, or, in our newest systems, by compliant mechanisms (so called VIA- variable impedance actuators), whose intrinsic com-pliance can be adjusted by an additional actuator. Both approaches required highly integrated mechatronic design and advanced, nonlinear control and planning strate-gies, which are presented in this paper.