Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168

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Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rcim

Sensorless and adaptive admittance control of industrial robot in physical

human−robot interaction
Bitao Yao a,b,d,∗, Zude Zhou a,d, Lihui Wang b, Wenjun Xu c,e, Quan Liu c,d, Aiming Liu c,d
a
School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
b
Department of Production Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 10044, Sweden
c
School of Information Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
d
Key Laboratory of Fiber Optic Sensing Technology and Information Processing (Wuhan University of Technology), Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430070, China
e
Hubei Key Laboratory of Broadband Wireless Communication and Sensor Networks (Wuhan University of Technology), Wuhan 430070, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: As industrial robots are applied in manufacturing industry on a large-scale and human intelligence is regarded
Physical human−robot interaction as an important part in manufacturing, physical human−robot interaction (pHRI) which integrates the strength
Dynamics and accuracy of robot with human operator’s ability of task cognition has drawn the attention of both academia
Quasi-static mode
and industry. However, an industrial robot without extra force/torque sensor for interacting force monitoring
Adaptive admittance control
cannot be used directly in pHRI, and research on pHRI of industrial robots remains a challenge. In this research,
a comprehensive dynamic model of an industrial robot in both dynamic mode and quasi-static mode is obtained to
calculate the external force produced by human operator in pHRI and enables sensorless pHRI for industrial robots
even in the environment with ambient vibration. Particularly, the dynamics in the process of mode switching
which has not been investigated by researchers is studied and compensated by an empirical but effective method.
Admittance control is used to transfer the detected force into reference position and velocity of the robot. RBF
(Radial Basis Function) network is used to update the damping parameter online in order to reduce the contact
force change and the contact force which makes pHRI more natural and easier. The stability of the controller is also
discussed. The proposed methods of external force detection and adaptive admittance control show satisfactory
behaviour in the experiments.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction dynamics of the robot is explored. Moreover, in human−robot collabo-

Manufacturing provides products for humans and is the main pil-
lar of human society. Industrial robots play an important role in the
manufacturing industry, such as in electronics and automobile facto-
ries. The advance of human operator protection technology has opened
up a new paradigm of human−robot collaboration [1,2]. pHRI is a type
of human−robot collaboration where human operators collaborate with
robots by physical contact. It integrates the strength and accuracy of
the robot with the human operator’s ability of task cognition and can
be adopted to improve the efficiency of manufacturing. For example,
car assembly in the automobile industry is a typical scenario, in which
the robot is used to remove the doors to the assembly line in a shared
human−robot workspace [3,4].
As industrial robots are usually not equipped with force/torque sen-
sors to monitor the contact force of the human operator and are not
applicable to interact with human operators, we study the sensorless
control of the robot in pHRI based on the robotic dynamics. The full
ration, the robots are expected to be not only intuitive but also easy to
use [5]. The admittance control is mostly used to transform the detected
external force into reference robot position and velocity. We propose an
adaptive admittance controller to make the human interact with the
robot with less effort compared with ordinary admittance controller.
The main contributions of this work are outlined below.
• Current dynamic model based methods for external force detection
of robots have not addressed the quasi-static mode (when there is
microscopic displacement at the joints and the joint friction is in
the pre-sliding regime) adequately enough. The robotic dynamics
in two modes, namely dynamic mode (when there are macroscopic
displacements on the joints and the joint friction is in the sliding
regime) and quasi-static mode, is carefully explored in this work.
Particularly, the methods of mode switching and the dynamics com-
pensation in the process of mode switching which have not been
addressed are studied. The external force on the robot then can be

∗
Corresponding author at: Department of Production Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 10044, Sweden.
E-mail address: bitao@kth.se (B. Yao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2017.12.004
Received 28 April 2017; Received in revised form 21 November 2017; Accepted 21 December 2017
0736-5845/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B. Yao et al.
detected based on the dynamic model even in an environment with
ambient vibration.
• On the basis of admittance control, we seek to update the damping
in order to reduce the contact force change and the contact force
between the human operator and the robot and in this way pHRI can
be more natural and easier. In this manner, the adaptive admittance
control based on RBF network which is used to tune the parameter
of the admittance controller adaptively is proposed.
• One joint of an industrial robot is used to demonstrate the effec-
tiveness of the proposed methods for external force detection of the
robot in both dynamic mode and quasi-static mode and the adaptive
control of the robot. The methods can be extended to an n-DOF robot
without any theoretical barrier.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 summarises
the state-of-the-art in external force detection and control strategies
of pHRI, and highlights the novelty and innovation of our method.
Section 3 deals with the robotic modelling, including the Stribeck fric-
tion modelling, the inertial parameter estimation, the dynamic mod-
elling of the robot in quasi-static mode, and the method of mode switch-
ing. In Section 4, an adaptive admittance control strategy based on RBF
network is proposed. The control stability is also discussed in this sec-
tion. Section 5 provides the experimental results of sensorless external
force detection and adaptive admittance control of a robot in pHRI. The
conclusions and future work are discussed in Section 6.
2. Related work
In this section, we first summarise the state-of-the-art in external
force detection of the robot, and then review the control strategies in
pHRI.
2.1. External force detection of the robot
pHRI is getting more and more attention from both academic and in-
dustrial sectors. The detection of external force produced by the human
operator is a prerequisite. Proprioceptive sensation is a direct method to
measure the external force. It includes haptic devices on the robot such
as tactile sensor skin [6] and force/torque sensors at the end-effector of
the robot [7,8]. In [3,4], a human operator steers a robot with the help of
force sensor that measures the user’s applied force. Some light-weighted
collaborative robots which use joint torque sensors to detect the force
produced by human operators have been developed and introduced to
the robot market, such as Kuka IIWA [9], ABB YuMi [10], Kinova [11],
RethinkRobotics [12], etc. They attract much attention of researchers,
for example, in a pHRI based homokinetic joint assembly case in [13],
the human interacts with Kuka IIWA. The performance of sensor-based
solution depends on the accuracy of the sensor. Usually, the higher the
accuracy of the sensor is, the heavier the cost is. Moreover, force/torque
sensors add weight to the robot.
Besides sensor based methods, some researchers have studied sen-
sorless methods of external force detection. Disturbance observers have
been used in the external force detection of robots, such as [14−17].
The authors of [18] propose a filter-based method for the detection of
external force on an industrial robot and the robot can react to human’s
push/pull. In these studies [14–18], the output of the servo level robot
controller is needed, but this is not available for most industrial robots
whose controllers are not open to robot users. Generalised momentum
is proposed by [19] and can be used to monitor the external force on
the robot, such as in [20,21]. However, the inertia parameters in the
generalised momentum are needed.
In the dynamic mode, the robot joint friction is usually deemed as
Coulomb friction. However, in the quasi-static mode, the joint friction is
quite different from Coulomb friction and is complex. In order to facili-
tate the external force detection in the quasi-static mode, the authors of
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Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168
[22] use convex optimisation method and prior knowledge of the exter-
nal force to estimate the robot joint friction in velocities close to zero.
This limits the application to environment where the prior knowledge
of the external force is unknown. Another method is to use a dithering
feedforward torque in the robot joint so that the joint friction is Coulomb
friction [23−24]. The drawback of this method is that it is harmful to
the mechanical structure of the robot. Although there are many studies
on the external force detection of the robots, the external force detec-
tion of robots in the quasi-static mode is not studded adequately enough,
particularly, the method of mode switching and the dynamic process of
mode switching between the dynamic mode and the quasi-static mode.
2.2. Control strategies in pHRI
The impedance/admittance control strategy realises a compliance
control and is most popular in pHRI. Systems which accept efforts to pro-
duce flows are called admittances, while systems which accept flows to
produce efforts are called impedances [25]. In [26], different impedance
modulation strategies are studied to modify the impedance of a redun-
dant manipulator for pHRI. The redundancy is made use of to make the
robotic equivalent inertia at the end-effector close to the desired iner-
tia. The control characteristics of a human operator who interacts with a
human−robotic system using an impedance controller are investigated
in [27]. Other examples of applying impedance control in pHRI can be
found in [28–30], etc.
Variable impedance/admittance control has been adopted to achieve
various goals. In [31], the manipulator end-effector force is used to ad-
just the admittance parameters and to reduce the oscillations in pHRI.
Model-free continuous critic learning is proposed in [32] to optimise the
impedance model and realise trajectory tracking and force regulation in
HRI, but experimental verification is not provided. In [33–36], Neural
network in the inner loop of a two loop controller is used to learn the dy-
namic model of the robot and make the robot response like a prescribed
impedance, and the outer loop takes into account the human dynamics
and adapt the robot impedance model, so that the robot system assists
humans with varying levels of skill to achieve task-specific objectives.
However, the dynamic model of the robot can be complex with coupled
dynamics of each joint and this limits the accuracy of the learned dy-
namic model of the robot. The human dynamics is also considered in the
adaptive impedance control in pHRI and modelled as a first-order lag
in [37]. Variable impedance is used in [39] to compensate for the un-
modelled uncertainties of the learned task model during pHRI. Variable
impedance which changes with the stiffness of the human arm can also
be used to improve the stability of human−robot cooperative task [38].
Besides compliance, there are other metrics to characterise the con-
trol strategies of pHRI. Positioning accuracy is one of the metrics. Hid-
den Markov Models are used in automatic segmentation and recogni-
tion of user motions to adjust the stiffness of virtual fixtures for human-
machine cooperative systems [40,41]. In this way, the accuracy of curve
following and object avoidance in robot-assisted manipulation can be
improved. The movement of human hand follows some characteristics
that can be used as the metrics of pHRI. Minimum hand jerk and joint
torque change are the characteristics of unconstrained point-to-point
movements of human hand [42]. In pHRI, the movement of human hand
is constrained by robots or the object that is manipulated by human op-
erator and the robot simultaneously. In the constrained environment,
combined minimum hand contact force change and the actuating force
(torque or muscle force) change characterise the hand movement [43].
There are some other metrics, such as time-to-completion [44].
There are other issues in the control of pHRI such as lead-follow role
assignment [45,46], safety issue [47,48], etc. This work mainly focuses
on the adaptive admittance control of the robot to make pHRI easier
and more natural by reducing the human−robot contact force and the
contact force change.
B. Yao et al. Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168

Fig. 1. KUKA KR 6 R700 sixx. Fig. 3. Excitation trajectory for the extraction of Stribeck friction with a velocity of
0.312 rad/s.

model characterises the nonlinearity of the friction. We use the Stribeck

model to characterise the friction of robot joint in dynamic mode. The
Stribeck model can be expressed as [52]
( ) 𝛿S
𝐹 (𝑣) = 𝐹C + 𝐹S − 𝐹C exp−|𝑣∕𝑣S | + 𝐹v 𝑣 (1)

where FC is the Column friction, FS the static friction, v the velocity of the
Fig. 2. Scheme of KUKA robot controller. joint, vS the Stribeck velocity, 𝛿 S an additional empirical parameter, and
Fv the viscous friction. It is common to accept 𝛿 S as a constant between
0.5 and 2 [53].
3. Dynamic modelling of robot The friction of Joint 3 is extracted by constant speed experiments in
which the torque caused by acceleration is zero. Joint 3 is commanded
In this research, KUKA KR 6 R700 sixx equipped with a KR C4 con- to move at constant speed clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively.
troller and KSS 8.3 software system is used to perform the modelling An example of excitation trajectory for the extraction of Stribeck friction
and control of the industrial robot in pHRI. Joint 3 of the robot is used is shown in Fig. 3.
to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. These meth- When Joint 3 moves clockwise and other joints keep stationary, the
ods can be extended to other joints of the robot. To achieve this, the torque of joint 3 is
additional work is to identify the inertial parameters of the robot by
Γ+ = Γf + 𝑄(𝑞 ) (2)
stimulating all joints of the robot simultaneously, which can be found
in [49]. The coordinate of Joint 3 is shown in Fig. 1. where Γf is the joint friction torque, q is the joint position, and Q(q) is
The scheme of KUKA Robot Controller (KRC) is shown in Fig. 2 [50]. the joint torque caused by the gravity of links 3, 4, 5, and 6 (link i is the
The HMI (Human Machine Interface) communicates with the KRC in ev- link that connects joint i with joint i + 1) as shown in Fig. 1.
ery 12 ms. We use a SUB file in KRC which works in parallel with the When Joint 3 moves counter-clockwise and other joints keep station-
robot controller and is processed by the controller interpreter to obtain ary, the torque of joint is
the value of system variables $AXIS_ACT_MEAS (measured joint posi- Γ − = − Γ f + 𝑄 (𝑞 ) (3)
tions) and $TORQUE_AXIS_ACT (measured output joint torques). The
sampling rate is approximately 83 Hz and is found to be sufficient for From Eqs. (2) and (3), it can be derived that
the dynamic modelling. A three order low-pass IIR Butterworth filter is Γ+ − Γ −
Γf = (4)
used to filter the noise of the measured torque as well as the velocity and 2
acceleration of the joint which are obtained by differential operation on Based on Eq. (4), the joint friction can be extracted from the mea-
the joint positions. The cut-off frequency of the filter is set as 5 Hz as sured joint torques, as shown in Fig. 4.
the human hand movements do not exceed 5–10 Hz [51]. The extracted joint friction and optimisation approach is used to es-
timate the unknown parameters in model (1). The objective function of
3.1. Stribeck friction of robot joint the optimisation is given by
𝑗=𝑘 [
∑ ( )]2
In the dynamic mode, the friction between two contacted surfaces is ( ) 𝛿S
min𝑓 = Γf − 𝐹C + 𝐹S − 𝐹C exp−|𝑣∕𝑣S | + 𝐹v 𝑣 (5)
nonlinear with the velocity of the surfaces’ relative movement. Stribeck 𝑗=1

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Fig. 5. Excitation trajectory for estimation of Stribeck parameter.

Fig. 4. Measured vs. predicted Stribeck friction.

Table 1
Estimated values of Stribeck parameters.

FC FS vS 𝛿S Fv

15.70 17.56 0.04 2.0 14.15

where k is the number of data samples.

A Matlab function fmincon which adopts the interior-point algorithm
is used to search the optimal solution of Eq. (5) under constraints. Ac-
cording to the extracted friction data shown in Fig. 4, the bound of FC
can be set as [15,20] Nm, the bound of (𝐹S − 𝐹C ) as [0, 5] Nm, the
bound of vS as [0, 0.1] rad/s, and the bound of Fv as [0, Inf]. More-
over, the bound of 𝛿 S is set as [0.5, 2] according to [53]. The values
of estimated Stribeck parameters are shown in Table 1 in the proper SI Fig. 6. Measured vs. predicted torque.
units. The predicted joint friction calculated by model (1) is shown by
the red dash line in Fig. 4. The mean square error of predicted friction
is 0.5249 N2 m2 . In the process of parameter estimation, 𝚪f is calculated based on
model (1) and compensated to the dynamics of the robot. Based on
3.2. Inertial parameter estimation (8) and the measured joint position and torque, it is calculated that 𝐼̂ZZ
is 2.2836 kg·m2 and 𝑀̂ X is 18.4789 Nm. The predicted torque calculated
As only Joint 3 is commanded to move while other joints are kept based on (6) is compared with the measured one, as shown in Fig. 6. The
stationary, there is no Coriolis-centrifugal force and links 3, 4, 5, and mean square error of the predicted torque is about 14.59 N2 m2 .
6 can be considered as a ‘whole’ link. The torque on Joint 3 without
external force can be written as
3.3. Dynamic model of robot in quasi-static mode
𝐼zz 𝑞̈ + 𝑀X cos(𝑞 ) + Γf = Γ (6)
where Izz is the moment of inertia of the whole link about the z axis of When the robot does not move and the joint brakes are open (the
joint 3, MX the whole link’s first moment of inertia about the x axis of brakes of robot actuators are normally closed to prevent the joints from
joint 3, and Γf the friction torque. moving), slight external vibrations may result in tiny movement (this
Eq. (6) can also be rewritten as status is called quasi-static mode) and obvious torque variation in the
[ ] robot joint. We perform an experiment by using KUKA KR 6 R700 sixx
𝐼 that only joint 6 is commanded to move randomly to simulate the ex-
[𝑞̈ cos(𝑞 )] zz = Γ − Γf (7)
𝑀X ternal vibration on joints 1–5 and the brakes of joints 1–5 are kept open
The values of Izz and MX can be estimated by trajectory excitation of (joints 1–5 were in quasi-static mode). Fig. 7 shows Joint 3′s position
joint 3 and least squares as and torque increments compared with its initial position and torque at
[ ] time 0 s. It can be seen that the external vibrations can cause tiny move-
̂Izz ( )−1 ( ) ment and obvious torque changes in Joint 3. In a shop floor, vibrations
= 𝐇 T 𝐇 𝐇 𝐓 𝚪 − 𝚪f
̂X
M are common. The robot’s joint torque change may be caused by the vi-
brations and mistaken as the external force produced by the human op-
⎡[𝑞̈ cos(𝑞 )]𝑡1 ⎤
erator. However, this is a false detection. To overcome this problem,
⎢ ⎥
𝐇=⎢ … ⎥ (8) the dynamics of the robot in the quasi-static mode should be explored.
⎢ ⎥ Fig. 8 shows the relationship between the torque increment and the po-
⎣[𝑞̈ cos(𝑞 )]𝑡k ⎦
sition increment of Joint 3 in quasi-static mode. It shows that there are
where 𝚪 = [Γ𝑡1 , … , Γ𝑡k ], 𝚪f = [(Γf )𝑡1 , … , (Γf )𝑡k ], and 𝑡1 , … , 𝑡k are the hysteresis loops of joint torques (the torques at the same position are
sampling time during the trajectory excitation. not the same) in quasi-static mode. The future torque not only depends
A sine trajectory as shown in Fig. 5 is used to excite the inertia of the on the departure position of the hysteresis loop but also shows similar
robot and estimate the inertial parameters in (7). The excitation cycle loop shape. This is called nonlocal memory hysteresis [54] and shows
is set as 4 s and the average of three periods is used to reduce the noise similar behaviour to pre-sliding friction which happens when the aver-
of measured data. age deflection of asperities of contacting surfaces is in the pre-sliding

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B. Yao et al. Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168

Fig. 7. Position and torque increments of Joint 3 under vibration.

Fig. 9. Maxwell slip model: (a) Maxwell slip elements, (b) Maxwell slip elements in par-
allel [54].

the change of the pre-sliding friction. In the following, the pre-sliding

friction in the robot joint is modelled.
The Maxwell slip elements shown in Fig. 9 can be used to model
the pre-sliding friction. Each Maxwell slip element can be expressed as
[54]
{ ( )
Torque increment (Nm)

𝑊 𝐹𝑖 = 𝑘𝑖 𝑧 − 𝜍𝑖
if||𝑧 − 𝜍𝑖 || < 𝑖 , then
𝑘𝑖 𝜍 = const
( ) 𝑖
⎧𝐹𝑖 = sgn 𝑧 − 𝜍𝑖 𝑊𝑖 (9)
⎪
else⎨ ( ) 𝑊𝑖
⎪𝜍𝑖 = 𝑧 − sgn 𝑧 − 𝜍𝑖 𝑘
⎩ 𝑖

where ki is the stiffness, z the common displacement, 𝜍 i the position of

Position increment (rad)
Fig. 8. Torques against positions of Joint 3 in quasi-static mode.
regime. In the experiment of this section, there is no external force on
Joint 3. A reasonable explanation for the torque increment of Joint 3 is
that, when the ambient vibration causes a tiny joint position change, the
closed-loop controller of the robot sends a control command to the actu-
ator which then outputs a torque to overcome the tiny position change
caused by the ambient vibration, and the torque change is equivalent to
the element, Fi the output force of the element, and Wi the saturation
force of the element’s output.
The number of Maxwell slip elements is chosen intuitively. The more
the Maxwell slip elements are, the more accurate the calculation of pre-
sliding friction will be. However, more Maxwell slip elements means
heavier burden of calculation. In this research, the pre-sliding friction is
calculated online and three elements are used to model the pre-sliding
friction of the robot joint. The parameters of the elements can be es-
timated by using optimisation approach similar to that used for the
Stribeck model. The estimated parameters are shown in Table 2 in the
proper SI units.
The total output force of 3 Maxwell slip elements is
𝑖=𝑚
∑
𝐹p = 𝐹𝑖 (10)
𝑖=1
To examine the dynamics of the joint in quasi-static mode in more
detail, a step position test is performed. Joint 3 is commanded to move to

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Table 2 the friction should be constant), the joint torque also changes obviously
Parameters of three Maxwell slip elements in parallel.
(from 4.83 Nm to 7.24 Nm). This phenomenon may be attributed to the
Element 1 Value Element 2 Value Element 3 Value unmodelled dynamics in the reducer in the joint, and will cause error in
k1 35,894 k2 160,065 k3 51,893
the predicted joint torque. The error will be examined by experiments
W1 7.3406 W2 1.371 W3 6.288 in Section 5.1 and compensated by an empirical but effective method.
𝜍1 −0.00041 𝜍2 −0.00048 𝜍3 0.00027 Therefore, without external force, the dynamics of Joint 3 in quasi-
static mode can be modelled as

𝑀X cos(𝑞 ) + 𝐹p + Γu = Γ (11)

where Γu is the torque due to the unmodelled dynamics.

3.4. Switching between dynamic mode and quasi-static mode

Fig. 10. Results of the step position change experiment: (a) position of Joint 3, (b) first
difference of position in (a) and the enlarged figure of the first difference of position in
the dashed box, (c) torque of Joint 3.
a target position and then stops. Fig. 10 shows the data in the test. It can
be seen from Fig. 10(a) that the friction is sliding friction before point
A since the joint position decreases from −0.2105 rad to −0.2123 rad
monotonously in 0.24 s (about 0.43°/s). Consequently, before point A,
the asperity of contacting surfaces of Joint 3 keeps at the maximum.
From Fig. 10(b), we can see that the first difference of joint position
keeps decreasing from point A to point C and it means that the asperity
of the contacting surfaces still keeps at the maximum. Considering that
the velocity of Joint 3 from point A to point C is near zero, the joint fric-
tion keeps at the maximum pre-sliding friction and can be considered
as a constant (equal to the total output of all the Maxwell slip elements)
during this process. Meanwhile, the position changes only slightly from
point A to point C, and the gravity-related dynamics on Joint 3 is nearly
constant. The acceleration is also near zero from point A to point C and
thus the torque due to the moment of inertia is almost zero. It seems to
come to a conclusion that the joint torque from point A to point C was
constant. However, the joint torque changes from 2.79 Nm to 7.24 Nm
when Joint 3 goes from point A to point C. Besides, while the first differ-
ence of position is about zero from point B to point C (which means that
Models (6) and (11) can be applied to dynamic mode and quasi-
static mode, respectively. A criterion should be adopted to guide the
selection of model to calculate the predicted joint torque. As the two
models apply to different regimes of friction, we define a threshold 𝑞̇ thr
of absolute joint angular velocity to determine the mode of joint move-
ment and guide the model selection. If the absolute joint angular veloc-
ity is smaller than 𝑞̇ thr , it is considered that the joint is in quasi-static
mode and model (6) will be adopted to calculate the predicted torque.
Otherwise, model (11) will be used to calculate the predicted torque.
However, there are some challenges to choose an appropriate 𝑞̇ thr . If 𝑞̇ thr
is too small (the extreme is zero), the movement which is actually in
the pre-sliding regime may be missed and this will bring difficulties to
identifying the initial value of 𝜍 i as discussed in the following.
According to model (9), the initial value of 𝜍 i is critical to the calcula-
tion of the predicted friction of joint in pre-sliding regime. Although the
initial value of 𝜍 i can be estimated based on optimisation approach, it
needs to be estimated again if the online monitoring of the joint position
was interrupted. Therefore, a practical and efficient method is needed.
Suppose a state when the asperity deflection of the contacting surfaces
reaches the maximum and the output force of each Maxwell slip ele-
ment becomes saturated. This state is chosen as the initial state for the
obtaining of 𝜍 i . In this state, 𝜍 i can be obtained as
𝑊i
𝜍i = sgn(𝑣) (12)
𝑘i
If there is a relative movement between the contacting surfaces after
reaching this initial state, 𝜍 i is updated based on model (9). The common
displacement z is calculated as the position increment relative to the
joint position when the joint reaches the initial state for the first time.
According to the above discussion, 𝑞̇ thr should be big enough so that
the initial state which is critical to the obtaining of 𝜍 i can be included in
the quasi-static mode. However, if 𝑞̇ thr is too big, there may be obvious
viscous friction in the joint and the friction calculated by model (11) may
not be accurate because viscous friction is not included in it. With these
considerations in mind, 𝑞̇ thr is set as 0.0017 rad/s in this research, the
corresponding angular velocity in degrees is about 0.1°/s.
The initial value of 𝜍 i can be obtained by moving the robot joint
slightly as shown by the green line in Fig. 11. After this movement, the
joint stops and is in quasi-static mode for the first time and the asperity
deflection of the contacting surfaces of the joint reaches the maximum.
The initial value of 𝜍 i is, therefore, can be calculated by (12). We can call
this process the initiation stage. Then, the joint goes into dynamic mode
if there is detected external force. The positions where the robot joint
goes from dynamic mode to quasi-static mode can then be captured by
comparing the measured absolute angular velocity with 𝑞̇ thr . Based on
this method, we can switch between the dynamic model and the quasi-
static model.
3.5. External force detection
Models (6) and (11) are used to fully characterise the dynamics of
the robot and to calculate the predicted joint torque without consider-
ing the external force. Specifically, model (6) is used to characterise the

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The block diagram of the industrial robot under external force is

Fig. 11. Schematic of mode switching between dynamic and quasi-static modes.
shown in Fig. 13, where qd is the desired position of the robot with-
out considering the external force, q is the actual output position. The
transfer function Gr (s) accounts for the joint displacement caused by
the external force. For an industrial robot with a rigid structure, the
stiffness is high and the joint displacement caused by the external force
can be ignored and thus Gr (s) can be considered approximately as zero.
Gc (s) represents the low-level controller of the robot. It can be consid-
ered equal to 1 due to the wide bandwidth designed for the industrial
robot controller. Ga (s) accounts for the effect of admittance control. The
stability of the robot, therefore, depends upon the stability of the admit-
tance controller. When the values of I and D in Eq. (15) are positive, the
robot system with admittance control is stable [20].

4.2. Adaptive update of damping based on RBF network

dynamics of the robot in dynamic mode while model (11) is used to
characterise the dynamics of the robot in quasi-static mode. Then, the
We propose an adaptive method to update the damping of the ad-
torque residual Γr between the predicted torque Γp (which is due to the
mittance control with the goal to minimise the contact force change and
inertia and friction of the robot) and the measure one Γm (which is mea-
the contact force. In this way, it is expected to make the interaction be-
sured by the actuator torque sensor in the robot joint and affected by
tween the human operator and the robot natural and reduce the burden
both the inertia and friction of the robot and the external force on the
on the human operator. RBF network is of simple structure and has the
robot) can be calculated and compared with a properly defined thresh-
ability to approximate any system with enough radial basis functions.
old to detect the external force produced by the human operator. The
RBF network is used to learn the structure of the controller that can ful-
torque residual is given by
fil the aim as discussed before. The output damping of the RBF network
Γr = Γ p − Γ m (13) can be defined as
𝑛
∑
where ( )
{ 𝐷 ∗ (𝐱 ) = 𝑤𝑖 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C , 𝑖 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛 (17)
Izz 𝑞̈ + 𝑀X cos(𝑞 ) + Γf , if |𝑞̇ | ≥ 𝑞̇ thr 𝑖=1
Γp = (14)
𝑀X cos(𝑞 ) + 𝐹p + Γu , if |𝑞̇ | < 𝑞̇ thr where 𝐺(∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C ) is the multivariate Gaussian function defined by
Eq. (18), yi the centre of the function, n the number of Gaussian func-
4. Adaptive admittance control for pHRI tions, and D∗ (x) the output damping.
( ( )T ( ))
4.1. Admittance control for pHRI ( ) − 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖
𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C = exp (18)
2𝜎𝑖2
Admittance control is adopted to transfer the detected external force
into reference position and velocity of the robot. The control framework where 𝜎 i is the standard deviation of the Gaussian function.
is shown in Fig. 12. RobotSensorInterface from KUKA is a commercial The input vector x is consisted of the detected contact force
software that can be used to obtain the feedback data and send com- and contact force change of the past m samples and is denoted by
𝑡 𝑡 𝑡 𝑡 𝑡 𝑡
mands to the robot controller [55]. In this work, a Java project based [Γr𝑘−𝑚 , … , Γr𝑘−1 , Γr𝑘 , 𝑑Γr𝑘−𝑚 , … , 𝑑Γr𝑘−1 , 𝑑Γr𝑘 ], where 𝑑Γr is the first
on open source middleware JOpenShowVar which is proposed by San- difference of the torque residual and means the contact force change.
filippo et al. [56] and verified to be capable of data acquisition and Backpropagation algorithm is used to update the weights of radial
robot control is programmed to acquire the robot’s feedback joint po- basis functions. The objective is to minimise the function given by
sitions and joint torques and send control commands to the robot. The 1( )2 1 ( )2
Java project runs on a frontend computer running Windows system. The min 𝜉 = 𝑑Γr + 𝜆 Γr (19)
2 2
frontend computer is connected to the robot controller by an Ethernet
The law of updating the radial basis functions is given by
cable. The Java project calls MATLAB functions to perform the calcu-
lation. The protocol of communication is TCP/IP. It is not real time to 𝜕𝜉
Δ𝑤𝑖 (𝑡) = −𝜂
use JOpenShowVar and the average time cost of communication is about 𝜕𝑤𝑖
( ( )2 ) ( ( )
5 ms. The control cycle for the pHRI control system is about 24 ms. Ex- 𝜕 12 𝑑Γr ) 𝜕 12 𝜆Γ2r 𝜕Γ
𝜕 𝑑Γr 𝜕𝐷 r 𝜕𝐷
periments in this work indicate that it is effective for the robot control = −𝜂 ( ) −𝜂
in pHRI. 𝜕 𝑑Γr 𝜕𝐷 𝜕𝑤𝑖 𝜕Γr 𝜕𝐷 𝜕𝑤𝑖
( )
The admittance dynamics is defined as ( ) 𝜕 𝑑Γr ( ) 𝜕Γ ( )
= −𝜂 𝑑Γr 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C − 𝜆𝜂Γr r 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C
Γr = 𝐼 𝑞̈ + 𝐷𝑞̇ 𝜕𝐷 𝜕𝐷
(15) ( ) ( ) ( )
= −𝜂1 𝑑Γr 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C − 𝜆𝜂2 Γr 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C
where Γr is the joint torque residual, I the moment of inertia, and D the ( ( ) ) ( )
= − 𝜂1 𝑑Γr + 𝜆𝜂2 Γr 𝐺 ∥ 𝐱 − 𝐲𝑖 ∥C (20)
damping.
The admittance dynamics can be rewritten as a second-order Taylor where 𝜂 is a positive constant which determines the rate of learning
discretisation [20] as and
( ) ( )
Δ𝑡2 𝐷 Δ𝑡2 1 ( ) 𝜕 𝑑Γr 𝜕Γ
𝜎𝑘+1 = 𝜎𝑘 + Δ𝑡 − 𝜎̇ 𝑘 + Γ 𝜂1 = 𝜂 , 𝜂2 = 𝜂 r (21)
2 𝐼 2 𝐼 r 𝑘 𝜕𝐷 𝜕𝐷
( )
𝐷 1( ) Although 𝜕(𝑑 Γr ∕𝑑 𝑡)∕𝜕𝐷 and 𝜕Γr ∕𝜕𝐷 can be time varying, 𝜂 1 and 𝜂 2
𝜎̇ 𝑘+1 = 1 − Δ𝑡 𝜎̇ + Δ𝑡 Γr 𝑘 (16)
𝐼 𝑘 𝐼 can be chosen as constant to absorb their effects [28].
where 𝜎 k is the reference angular displacement at time tk , 𝜎̇ 𝑘 the refer- The weight wi (t) can then be expressed as
ence angular velocity at time tk , (Γr )k the joint torque residual at time 𝑡
tk , and Δt the discrete time step. 𝑤 𝑖 (𝑡 ) = 𝑤 𝑖 (0 ) + Δ𝑤𝑖 (𝑡)𝑑𝑡 (22)
∫0

164
B. Yao et al.
Fig. 12. Framework of admittance control for pHRI.
Fig. 13. Block diagram of industrial robot with an external force.
The centres are important and are set according to the force or force
change level in the experiment. If the centres are set to too low or too
high, updating the weights of radial basis functions will be poor.
5. Experiments
5.1. Experiment 1: external force detection in quasi-static mode
In this work, joint 3 is used to demonstrate the proposed methods. In
Experiment 1, only joint 6 is commanded to move randomly in the whole
process of the experiment in order to simulate the ambient vibration
acting on Joint 3. When joint 6 moves, the brakes of all joints are open.
Then, joint 3 of the robot is commanded to move a slight distance (e.g.
1° in this work) and then stops according to the green line in Fig. 11 to
obtain the initial value of 𝜍 i . After the initiation stage, Joint 3 is in
a quasi-static mode. The human operator then applies a force near the
end-effector for two times to produce a torque about the z axis of Joint 3
(as shown in Fig. 1) clockwise and counterclockwise respectively, each
for one time. The threshold 𝑞̇ thr is set as 0.0017 rad/s (about 0.1°/s).
Fig. 14 shows the data after the absolute joint velocity is lower than
𝑞̇ thr .
Fig. 14(a) shows the first difference of Joint 3′s position. It is not nec-
essarily that the data in Fig. 14 are all in pre-sliding regime because 𝑞̇ thr
is usually chosen higher than the critical value that actually separates
the sliding regime and the pre-sliding regime of friction. Before the time
of about 0.4 s, the first difference of position is negative. Considering
that Joint 3 is in dynamic mode in the initiation stage, the asperity defor-
mation of the contacting surfaces of Joint 3 keeps at its maximum during
the period 0∼0.4 s. The absolute value of the predicted friction during
this period reaches the maximum (17.56 Nm) as shown in Fig. 14(c).
It is reasonable to infer that the torque in Joint 3 keeps constant dur-
ing this period (0∼0.4 s) based on model (11) if there is no unmodelled
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Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168
Fig. 14. External force detection in the quasi-static mode.
dynamics. However, as shown in Fig. 14(b), during the period 0∼0.4 s,
the measured torque of Joint 3 increases obviously and this infers there
is unmodelled dynamics Γu . We propose an empirical method which
subtracts the original torque residual with its average value to compen-
sate Γu . The torque residual with compensation is shown by the red line
in Fig. 14(d). The threshold for external force detection is 3 Nm and
is shown by the blue dash lines in Fig. 14(d). The compensated torque
residual is approximately zero during the period of 0−12 s. This is corre-
sponding to the fact that there is no external force during this period. The
compensated torque residual decreases obviously in the period 13−14 s
and increases obviously in the period 16−17 s. This is caused by the
external force Γe produced by the human operator. Besides, Fig. 14(b)
shows that there is an obvious variation of joint torque which is caused
by the ambient vibration produced by joint 6. The predicted pre-sliding
friction based on model (10) is shown in Fig. 14(c). Fig. 14(d) shows
that the torque variation caused by the ambient vibration can be com-
pensated effectively by model (10). This shows that the external force
in the quasi-static mode can be effectively detected.
Currently, the Benchmark test has not been done due to the lack of
force sensor and we empirically chose the threshold to detect the exter-
nal force. The threshold is determined by the minimum force that can be
detected based on model (11). This minimum force that can be detected
B. Yao et al.
Fig. 15. Mode switching of Joint 3.
is determined by the accuracy of the dynamic model which is affected by
the method of parameter identification of unknown parameters in (11),
the unmodelled robotic dynamics, and the high noise in the feedback
joint torque. In the future work, we will perform a Benchmark test to
further evaluate the method in this work. The resolution of the detected
force depends on the sensor that measures feedback joint torque.
5.2. Experiment 2: switching between dynamic and quasi-static modes
Similar to Experiment 1, Joint 6 is commanded to move randomly to
simulate the ambient vibration during the experiment and other joints
do not move. The initial position of Maxwell slip elements of joint 3
𝜍 i is initiated by a movement as shown by the green line of Fig. 11.
𝑞̇ thr is set as 0.0017 rad/s. During the experiment, the human operator
applies a force near the end-effector for two times to produce a torque
about the z axis of Joint 3 (as shown in Fig. 1) clockwise and coun-
terclockwise respectively, each for one time. The robot is commanded
to move to a reference position proportionally to the torque residual
with a constant velocity. Fig. 15(d) shows the torque residual that is
calculated based on model (13). The quasi-static mode is shown by the
yellow areas in Fig. 15(d) while the dynamic mode is shown by the pink
areas. It shows the process of switching between dynamic mode and
quasi-static mode. First, Joint 3 goes into quasi-static mode after the
initiation stage. At the time about 10 s, there is an external force which
is produced by the human operator and higher than the threshold (5
Nm) shown by the blue dash line in Fig. 15(d). Consequently, the posi-
tion of Joint 3 is commanded to increase proportionally to the torque
residual by the program in the frontend computer and Joint 3 goes into
dynamic mode. The movement of Joint 3 is shown in Fig. 15(a). After
the human operator stops acting a torque on Joint 3 and the last com-
mand is executed, Joint 3 stops. During the process that Joint 3 goes
from dynamic mode to quasi-static mode, the point where the absolute
joint velocity is 𝑞̇ thr will be captured and the position at this point is
used as a new initial position for the calculation of predicted torque in
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Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168
quasi-static mode. As shown in Fig. 15(d), Joint 3 successfully switches
between the quasi-static mode and the dynamic mode. However, there
are some phenomena that are noteworthy. There is a time delay of robot
movement when there is an external force at about 9.8 s and 18.6 s. This
delay is longer than the cycle of control which is about 24 ms. This is
because all joints of the robot are synchronised in a way that all joints
start and stop moving at the same time when the motion control com-
mand PTP (point − to − point motion) of KRL (Kuka Robot Language) is
executed. Therefore, Joint 3 may move very slowly if the trajectory of
joint 6 is much longer than joint 3′s. Another phenomenon is that there
are some peaks in the torque residual in Fig. 15(d). These peaks are at
the position where the joint changes from quasi-static mode to dynamic
mode. This is caused by the tiny mechanical backslap in the reducer
which is difficult to model.
5.3. Experiment 3: admittance control with constant damping
In this experiment, the robot is controlled under the contact force
between the human operator and the robot. Dynamic models (6) and
(11) are applied for external force detection on the robot. The admit-
tance control is applied with a constant damping of 50 Nm s/rad and
a constant moment of inertia 20 kg/m2 . The results are obtained and
shown in Fig. 16. Fig. 16(a) and (c) show that the position of Joint 3
can be changed frequently under the external force of the human oper-
ator. During t1 −t2 , the external torque on joint 3 is about 10 Nm, the
joint angular velocity keeps approximately constant at 0.2 rad/s and the
acceleration of the joint can be regarded as approximately 0. According
to (15), the resisting force of the admittance controller is about 10 Nm
(50 Nm·s/rad × 0.2 rad/s) and this is nearly equal to the external force.
This verifies the validity of the admittance controller. However, there
are some spikes with high torque residuals when the joint starts to move
and stops. This is due to the mechanical backslash that is hard to model
and not included in the model (11).
B. Yao et al. Robotics and Computer–Integrated Manufacturing 51 (2018) 158–168

experiments is nearly equal. The process of damping updating is shown

by the green line in Fig. 17(b). It can be seen in Fig. 17(b) and (c) that
in adaptive damping control the damping changes accordingly when
the torque residual changes. The torque residual change (calculated as
the first difference of the torque residual) is shown in Fig. 17(d). The
average squares of the torque residual change in the adaptive admit-
tance control and the constant admittance control are 0.051 N2 m2 and
0.060 N2 m2 , respectively. This means that the change of torque residual
(which refers to the contact force between the human operator and the
industrial robot) is lower by using the adaptive admittance control. The
cost calculated by the objective function (19) is shown in Fig. 17(e). The
average of the costs during the adaptive admittance control and the con-
stant admittance control are 1.309 and 1.7853, respectively. The result
shows that the adaptive admittance control is effective in reducing the
contact force and the force change.

6. Conclusions

This paper studies the sensorless external force detection based on

Fig. 16. Results of admittance control. dynamic modelling and the adaptive admittance control based on RBF
network for an industrial robot in pHRI. The mode of the robot is divided
1
into two modes, namely the dynamic mode and the quasi-static mode. In
Position (rad)

dynamic mode, the joint friction is modelled as Stribeck friction which

(a) 0
considers the nonlinear Stribeck effect. In quasi-static mode, the joint
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 friction is modelled based on Maxwell slip elements. The method of
6 switching between these two modes is proposed. The dynamics in the
(Nm·s/rad)
Damping

(b) 4 process of mode switching is analysed and compensated by an empir-

2
ical method effectively. The dynamic models are used to calculate the
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 predicted torque in the robot joint and compared with the measured
Torque residual

20
torque even in a vibration environment. The torque residuals reflect the
(Nm)

(c) 10
contact force between the robot and the human operator without using
0
extra sensors. The torque residuals are then transferred into reference
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
position and velocity of the robot by admittance control. The damping
Torque residual

2
change (Nm)

(d) 0
of admittance control is updated online in pHRI to reduce the contact
force change and the contact force and thus make pHRI easier and more
-2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 natural. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed
4
dynamic model and the adaptive control method. This makes the indus-
Cost

(e) 2 trial robot a possible partner in pHRI. However, there are some problems
0 that can be improved in our future work, such as the friction change
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
when the joint temperature changes. Moreover, the safety issue in pHRI
Time (s)
is also important. The standard on collaborative robots such as ISO/TS
Fig. 17. Adaptive admittance control: green lines refer to the results of adaptive admit- 15,066:2016 can be incorporated in the future.
tance control while blue lines refer to the results of admittance control with constant
damping. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader
is referred to the web version of this article.) Acknowledgement

This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation

5.4. Experiment 4: admittance control with adaptive damping
A point to point experiment is used to verify the effectiveness of
the proposed adaptive admittance control strategy. Joint 3 is used to
demonstrate it. The damping of the admittance controller is updated
online according to law (20). The human operator moves Joint 3 from a
start point and stops at an endpoint. The torque residual and the torque
residual change in the past 5 steps are taken as the input to the RBF
network. 20 Gaussian functions are used. 𝜂 1 is set as 0.01 and 𝜂 2 is set
as 0.1. 𝜆 is set as 0.01. The centres of Gaussian functions are set to be
near the expected contact force or force change level. Trial and error
can be used improve the performance of control. A constant damping
5 Nm·s/rad is used to compare with the adaptive admittance control. In
both experiments, the moment of inertia is set as 3 kg/m2 .
The experimental results of adaptive damping are shown by green
lines in Fig. 17 while results of the experiment with constant damp-
ing are shown by the blue lines. Fig. 17(a) shows that the movement
range of the two experiments is almost the same although with a mi-
nor difference due to the positioning error. The time used in the two
of China (Grant Nos. 51775399 and 51475343), the Keygrant Project of
Hubei Technological Innovation Special Fund(Grant no. 2016AAA016),
and the China Scholarship Council.
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