Compliant motion using a mobile manipulator: An operational space formulation approach to aircraft canopy polishing

The operational space formulation provides a framework for the analysis and control of robotic systems with respect to interactions with their environments. In this paper, we discuss its implementation on a mobile manipulator programmed to polish an aircraft canopy with a curved surface of unknown geometry. The polishing task requires the robot to apply a specified normal force on the canopy surface while simultaneously performing a compliant motion keeping the surface of the grinding tool tangentially in contact with the workpiece. A human operator controls the mobile base via a joystick to guide the polishing tool to desired areas on the canopy surface, effectively increasing the mobile manipulator's reachable workspace. The results demonstrate the efficacy of compliant motion and force regulation based on the operational space formulation for robots performing tasks in unknown environments with robustness towards base motion disturbances. The mobile manipulator consists of a PUMA 560 arm mounted on top of a Nomad XR4000 mobile base. Implementation issues are discussed and experimental results are shown.