Interactive Force-Impedance Control

2025-10-20

AI Summary

In human–robot collaboration involving frequent physical contact, inaccurate human intention estimation, rigid role switching, and loss of passivity pose significant safety risks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a unified interactive force–impedance control framework based on port-Hamiltonian systems. The framework couples interaction and task ports, enabling adaptive master–slave role switching via real-time analysis of interaction power flow—achieving, for the first time, intrinsic unification of passivity preservation and dynamic role modulation. By integrating external force sensing, dynamic compensation, and energy-flow analysis, the method enhances compliance and natural responsiveness while rigorously maintaining system passivity. Experimental evaluation demonstrates superior stability, safety, and collaborative efficiency under high-contact-frequency scenarios, significantly outperforming conventional external-force-based or data-driven approaches.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User modeling and simulation for interactive and conversational systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy

Abstract

Human collaboration with robots requires flexible role adaptation, enabling robot to switch between active leader and passive follower. Effective role switching depends on accurately estimating human intention, which is typically achieved through external force analysis, nominal robot dynamics, or data-driven approaches. However, these methods are primarily effective in contact-sparse environments. When robots under hybrid or unified force-impedance control physically interact with active humans or non-passive environments, the robotic system may lose passivity and thus compromise safety. To address this challenge, this paper proposes the unified Interactive Force-Impedance Control (IFIC) framework that adapts to the interaction power flow, ensuring effortless and safe interaction in contact-rich environments. The proposed control architecture is formulated within a port-Hamiltonian framework, incorporating both interaction and task control ports, through which system passivity is guaranteed.

Problem

• Ensuring robot safety during physical human-robot collaboration
• Maintaining system passivity in contact-rich interaction environments
• Adapting robot role switching between leader and follower modes

Innovation

• Interactive Force-Impedance Control adapts to interaction power flow
• Port-Hamiltonian framework ensures system passivity during interactions
• Dual control ports manage both interaction and task objectives