A novel start-up method of sensorless passive lead-through programming for industrial robots

Purpose Sensorless passive lead-through programming (LTP) is a promising physical human-robot interaction technology that enables manual trajectory demonstrations based on gravity and friction compensation. The major difficulty lies in static friction compensation during LTP start-up. Instead of static friction compensation, conventional methods only compensate for Coulomb friction after the joint velocity exceeds a threshold. Therefore, conventional start-up external torques must overcome static friction. When the static friction is considerable, it is difficult for conventional LTP to start up and make small movements. This paper aims to decrease the start-up external torque and improve the small movement performance. Design/methodology/approach This paper reveals a novel usage of a high-gain position-loop in industrial robot applications aimed at sensitively detecting external torque during start-up. Then, the static friction is partly compensated by Coulomb friction to facilitate start-up. In addition, a detailed transition method between the proposed start-up and conventional passive LTP is proposed based on a finite state machine. Findings Experiments are implemented on the ROKAE XB4 robot to verify the effectiveness of the proposed external torque detection. Compared with the conventional LTP method, the proposed LTP method significantly decreases the start-up external torque and facilitates small movements. Originality/value This paper proposes and verifies a novel start-up method of sensorless LTP based on a start-up external torque detection and a transition method between start-up and conventional LTP. This research improves the LTP start-up performance, especially for industrial robots with large static friction.