Force Control of Elastic Actuators Using Acceleration Feedback

Series elastic actuators (SEAs) have become fun- damental components in robots that physically interact with unstructured environments and humans. Force control of SEAs is indeed an active area of research. This paper proposes a theoretical foundation for acceleration feedback (AF) in SEA force control. In particular, this paper motivates improved performance robustness and transparency exactly as if using a softer and lighter actuator.