Model-based force/position control of cooperative manipulation systems

This paper presents a centralized force/position controller for a heavy object manipulation in a multi-manipulator cooperative system. System dynamics of cooperative manipulating tasks comes from complex interaction of the object with robot manipulators and the environment. In this paper, focussing on the interaction effects in the system as well as by noting the role of imposed kinematics and force constraints, manipulator coordination and minimizing internal forces a pre-designed impedance behaviour between manipulator end effectors and the object is developed. The stability of the feedback system is then presented through passivity theorem and simulation results are finally provided with three manipulators handling the object supporting the relevance of the theoretical results