Hybrid Force-Position Control of an Elastic Tendon-Driven Scrubbing Robot (TEDSR)

There is a lack of cleaning robots dedicated to the scrubbing of contaminated surfaces. Contaminated surfaces in domestic and industrial settings typically require manual scrubbing which can be costly or hazardous. There is growing demand for automated sanitization systems in hospitals, food- processing plants, and other settings where cleanliness of surfaces is important. To address the opportunity to automate the scrubbing of surfaces, this work focuses on the use of series elastic actuators which can apply consistent trajectories of scrubbing force. Consistent force during scrubbing increases the rate of removal for a contaminant. An elastic robot which has rigid links and low-stiffness joints can perform friction-based cleaning of surfaces with complex geometries while maintaining consistent scrubbing force. This study uses a hybrid force- position control scheme and a low-cost elastic robot to perform scrubbing. This study observes the relationship between joint stiffness in the robot and the disturbance rejection for force- based control during scrubbing.