Patent ID: 8463433
Filing Date: 2013-06-11
Classification: B25J

Abstract:
1. A robot apparatus comprising: a link structure having a plurality of rigid body links; a joint actuator which drives a joint which connects links of the link structure together, a torque detector configured to detect a torque generated at the joint; a virtual external force calculator configured to calculate, independent of external force applied to the link structure, a virtual force virtually acting on the link structure but not actually acting on the link structure, the virtual external force calculator comprising an operational space calculating unit and a linear complementary problem solver, wherein the linear complementary problem solver is configured to calculate the virtual force based at least in part on data calculated by the operational space calculating unit; a plurality of contact sensors distributed over a surface of the link structure and configured to detect parts of contact between the link structure and persons or objects; an actual force converter configured to convert the virtual force calculated by the virtual external force calculator into an external force capable of actually existing and an actuator force of the joint actuator, using contact information detected by the plurality of contact sensors, an actuator driver configured to make the joint actuator generate the actuator force; and a torque compensation controller configured to exert control such that a variation between the actuator force and the torque detected by the torque detector is reduced, wherein the linear complementary problem solver is configured to solve the linear complementary problems given by: where x is a physical quantity, Λ