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Force control is the control of the force with which a machine or the manipulator of a robot acts on an object or its environment. By controlling the contact force, damage to the machine as well as to the objects to be processed and injuries when handling people can be prevented. In manufacturing tasks, it can compensate for errors and reduce wear by maintaining a uniform contact force. Force control achieves more consistent results than position control, which is also used in machine control. Force control can be used as an alternative to the usual motion control, but is usually used in a complementary way, in the form of hybrid control concepts. The acting force for control is usually measured via force transducers or estimated via the motor current.
Force control has been the subject of research for almost three decades and is increasingly opening up further areas of application thanks to advances in sensor and actuator technology and new control concepts. Force control is particularly suitable for contact tasks that serve to mechanically process workpieces, but it is also used in telemedicine, service robot and the scanning of surfaces.
For force measurement, force sensors exist that can measure forces and torques in all three spatial directions. Alternatively, the forces can also be estimated without sensors, e.g. on the basis of the motor currents. Indirect force control by modeling the robot as a mechanical resistance (impedance) and direct force control in parallel or hybrid concepts are used as control concepts. Adaptive approaches, fuzzy controllers and machine learning for force control are currently the subject of research.