Back to results
US 9,221,172 B2Granted
Constraining robotic manipulators with redundant degrees of freedom
AssigneeRethink Robotics, Inc.
InventorsMatthew Murray Williamson, Matthew DiCicco, Joseph M. Romano
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Redundant robotic manipulators may be constrained in their motions during operation in a gravity-compensated mode by applying, in addition to gravity-compensating torques, constraining torques to one or more of the joints. The constraining torques may urge the manipulator to a specified canonical posture, and may be modeled by virtual springs attached to the constrained joints.
Claims10
A robot comprising:
- a manipulator comprising a plurality of links connected in series by a plurality of joints, the manipulator having at least one redundant degree of freedom;
- controllers associated with the joints for applying torques to the manipulator via the joints;
- and
- a computational facility in communication with the controllers for computing torques to be applied to the joints in a mode compensating for gravity while reducing uncontrollable drifts of the manipulator resulting from the gravity compensation by constraining movements of the manipulator, the torques comprising a constraining torque urging a posture of the manipulator to a canonical posture,
- wherein an end-point of the manipulator is moved only when the torques are counteracted by an applied force.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.