System for controlling motion and constraint forces in a robotic system

A system for controlling motion and constraint forces in a robotic system, the system comprising:

• at least one torque controlled robot having constraints and one or more joints;
• one or more processors and a memory, the memory having executable instructions encoded thereon, such that upon execution of the instructions, the one or more processors perform operations of:
• inferring constraints from a sensed state of the robot/environment interactions;
• appending the inferred constraints to known internal robot constraints to generate constrained dynamics;
• determining properties associated with the constrained dynamics and providing the properties to a controller;
• determining inequality conditions associated with maintaining desired robot/environment interactions;
• specifying a set of equality conditions based on the inequality conditions;
• aggregating the set of equality conditions with any internal robot constraints to generate aggregated conditions that are provided to the controller;
• generating joint torque commands for the robot based on the aggregated conditions and a specified task and null space motion command;
• and
• actuating the robot based on the joint torque commands.

A method for controlling motion and constraint forces in a robotic system, the method comprising an act of:

• causing one or more processors to execute instructions encoded upon a memory, such that upon execution of the instructions, the one or more processors perform operations of:
• inferring constraints from a sensed state of robot/environment interactions;
• appending the inferred constraints to known internal robot constraints to generate constrained dynamics;
• determining properties associated with the constrained dynamics and providing the properties to a controller;
• determining inequality conditions associated with maintaining desired robot/environment interactions;
• specifying a set of equality conditions based on the inequality conditions;
• aggregating the set of equality conditions with any internal robot constraints to generate aggregated conditions that are provided to the controller;
• generating joint torque commands for the robot based on the aggregated conditions and a specified task and null space motion command;
• and
• actuating the robot based on the joint torque commands.

A computer program product for controlling motion and constraint forces in a robotic system, the computer program product comprising:

• computer-readable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium that are executable by a computer having one or more processors, such that upon execution of the instructions, the one or more processors perform operations of:
• inferring constraints from a sensed state of robot/environment interactions;
• appending the inferred constraints to known internal robot constraints to generate constrained dynamics;
• determining properties associated with the constrained dynamics and providing the properties to a controller;
• determining inequality conditions associated with maintaining desired robot/environment interactions;
• specifying a set of equality conditions based on the inequality conditions;
• aggregating the set of equality conditions with any internal robot constraints to generate aggregated conditions that are provided to the controller;
• generating joint torque commands for the robot based on the aggregated conditions and a specified task and null space motion command;
• and
• actuating the robot based on the joint torque commands.