Position/Force Control of Manipulator in Contact with Flexible Environment

The paper presents the issue position/force control of a manipulator in contact with the flexible environment. It consists of the realisation of manipulator end-effector motion on the environment surface with the simultaneous appliance of desired pressure on the surface. The paper considers the case of a flexible environment when its deformation occurs under the pressure, which has a significant influence on the control purpose realisation. The article presents the model of the controlled system and the problem of tracking control with the use of neural networks. The control algorithm includes contact surface flexibility in order to improve control quality. The article presents the results of numerical simulations, which indicate the correctness of the applied control law.