Cascade controller design for compliant actuators

Compliant actuators are widely used in industrial robots due to the fact that the compliant elements have the capacity to absorb excessive collision force and guarantee the robot safety. Moreover, the compliant elements can be also employed as force/torque sensors in the control loops. Therefore, the research on the compliant actuators is of importance in the theory and application sides. Specifically, it is required that the robot systems should have a low stiffness when the subjected collision force is greater than the prescribed injury tolerance. But, in the normal status, the systems maintain the required capability. In this paper, the system stiffness of a compliant actuator is defined as a 'mechanical impedance' (the ratio between output force and output shaft angle). A cascade controller is well designed by following the results on analyzing the characteristic of compliant actuator impedance stability and collision. At the end, simulation results show the effectiveness of the analytic results and designed controller.