J Intell Robot Syst
DOI 10.1007/s10846-015-0255-6
Rolling Contact Motion Generation and Control of Robotic
Fingers
Leonidas Droukas Zoe Doulgeri
Received: 28 November 2014 / Accepted: 22 July 2015
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract Dexterity in human hand is connected with
the fingertip rolling ability. In this work we consider
rolling motion of spherical robotic fingertips as one
of the control objectives together with the set point
position control and force trajectory tracking. The
generation of a rolling motion trajectory is proposed
and a control solution is designed which achieves pre-
scribed transient and steady state tracking behavior.
The proposed control law is structurally and compu-
tationally simple and does not utilize the dynamics of
the robot model or its approximation. A simulation of
a five degrees of freedom robot show excellent contact
rolling performance even at cases of adverse friction
conditions while alternative controllers lead to con-
tact sliding. Experiments with a KUKA LWR4+ are
performed to validate the proposed method.
Keywords Contact rolling Trajectory planning
Prescribed performance
Z. Doulgeri () L. Droukas
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: doulgeri@eng.auth.gr
L. Droukas
e-mail: ldroukas@auth.gr
1 Introduction
Manipulation dexterity is irrevocably connected with
the rolling ability of robotic fingertips. Rolling fin-
gertips allow fine and accurate adjustment of con-
tact positions facilitating the dynamic achievement of
grasp stability and objects desired pose [2, 20]. The
multi-fingered robotic hands that have been designed
and manufactured usually embody deformable round
fingertips to increase friction, conform to the con-
tacted surface geometry and reduce impact effects
[1, 5, 1012, 19]. Most of the controllers that have
been proposed for dexterous grasping and manipula-
tion base their design on a system model expressed
by differential algebraic equations which incorporate
rolling as a constraint rather than a control objective
[17, 18]. However as it is shown in [7] these control
laws do not guarantee a contact rolling motion. The
reason lies on the implicit assumption of the rolling
constraints which is the availability of a potentially
infinite friction. In practice however, friction may not
be sufficient to sustain the tangential forces induced
by the controller. On the other hand, incorporating
rolling as an additional control objective is a challeng-
ing problem particularly under uncertainties regarding
the contact friction.
There are few reported works that explicitly con-
sider rolling as one of the controllers objectives. In an
early attempt, the contact force that is closest to sliding

is regulated by adjusting the desired normal force in
order to remain within the friction cone [13]; if friction
is unknown, touch sensors that identify imminent slip
must be utilized in this case. The design of a control
law which drives the rolling error to zero is pro-
posed for the planar case [7]; however, as rolling error
convergence to zero is dependant on the appropriate
choice of control parameters with respect to envi-
ronmental conditions, significant sliding may occur.
Summarizing the current state of the art, achieving
rolling motion has been disregarded as a control objec-
tive and has in practice relied on favorable friction
conditions.
In this work the problem of controlling the
rolling of a spherical tip towards a desired posi-
tion is addressed by the planning and control of an
ideal rolling trajectory. The proposed control solution
employs the prescribed performance control method-
ology initially proposed in [4] which guarantees a
preselected transient and steady state behavior of
the tracking error. Following the prescribed perfor-
mance approach, novel model-free controllers have
been designed for both unconstrained and constrained
robot motion [3, 8, 9]. The current paper is an exten-
sion of the conference paper [6] where the basic idea
of planning an ideal rolling trajectory is presented.
Compared to [6], the current paper contains the design
of a novel control solution for motion/force tracking
that is structurally and computationally simpler and
its validation through both simulation and experimen-
tal studies. Specifically, a five degrees of freedom
robot finger with a soft tip in contact with a planar
surface is simulated to show the robustness of the
proposed approach with respect to the contact fric-
tion condition. Simulations further demonstrate that in
Fig. 1 Soft tip robot finger
in contact with a planar
surface
J Intell Robot Syst
most practical friction cases a conventional regulator
which is designed with the constrained model fails to
achieve rolling. The proposed controller is further val-
idated via experiments with a KUKA LWR4+ in the
kinematic level.
The remainder of this article is structured as fol-
lows. Section 2 is devoted to the modeling of a
robotic finger with soft semi spherical tip in contact
with a rigid planar surface. Section 3 analyses the
contact kinematics focusing on the contact relative
velocity which determines the contact motion type.
Section 4 presents the method for generating an ideal
rolling motion trajectory and the design of the pro-
posed prescribed performance control law. Prescribed
performance preliminaries are given in Appendix A
and the stability proof of the proposed controller in
Appendix B. Simulation and experimental results ver-
ifying the approach are presented in Sections 5 and 6
respectively and conclusions are drawn in Section 7.
2 Problem Presentation and Preliminaries
Let us consider the system of an nq degrees of freedom
robotic finger with revolute joints and soft semi-
spherical tip of radius r in compliant contact with a
rigid planar surface as depicted in Fig. 1. Let q nq
denote its joint position vector. The dynamic model of
the system can be written as follows [14]:
M(q)q + C(q, q)q + G(q) + J T (q)F = u (1)
where M(q) nq nq is the positive definite robot
inertia matrix satisfying 0 < m M(q) m for
some positive constants m, m, C(q, q)q nq is the
vector of Coriolis and centripetal forces, G(q) nq
J Intell Robot Syst
 T
is the gravity vector, J (q) = JvT (q) JT (q)
6nq is the robot Jacobian, F 6 is the interaction
force arising at the contact and u nq is the vector
of applied joint torques.
Throughout our analysis, we assume known robot
kinematics. Let frame {t} be the frame attached at
the center of the soft semi-spherical tip. Let pt =
[xt yt zt ]T 3 and Rt = [nt ot at ] be the tips posi-
tion and orientation with respect to the robots base
frame {B}. The tips rotational velocity t 3 is
given by t  S(t ) = Rt RtT with S(.) being the
skew-symmetric matrix of the vector argument. The
robot tip velocity Vt is related to the joint velocity q
through the robot Jacobian J (q) as follows:
 
pt
Vt = = J (q)q (2)
t reference unless this is the inertia frame {B}, in which
Moreover, the contacted surface is also assumed to be
of known position and orientation with respect to the
robots base frame {B}. Let {S} be the fixed surface
frame (Fig. 1) with position ps 3 and rotation
matrix Rs = [t1 t2 n] with respect to {B}.
The interaction force F that is assumed to be avail-
able for measurement consists of: (i) the force normal
to the surface Nw F where Nw = nw nTw with nw =
 T T T
n 031 the generalized normal vector to the sur-
face and (ii) the tangential forces and torques due to
friction and tangential deformations Qw F with Qw =
I6 Nw the tangential projection matrix. Regarding
the normal force magnitude f = nTw F , we shall adopt
the following nonlinear spring-like model for the sake
of the analysis:
f = f() , > 0
with f() being a positive strictly increasing and con-
tinuously differentiable nonlinear function and the
material deformation of the robots soft tip that is
apparently given by:
= r + nT (pt ps )
with
= nT pt
its derivative. Thus, the derivative of f is given by:
f = f ()
df( )
where f ()  d is strictly positive for all > 0.
The goal of this work is the robust control of
Eq. 1 in such a way that guarantees a rolling contact
motion towards a target location under any contact
friction conditions as well as tracking or regulation of
a desired contact force.
3 Contact Kinematic Analysis
Let us define the contact point c of the robotic finger-
tip upon the surface {S} as the geometrical center of
the contact area (Fig. 1). Let frame {C} of same ori-
entation as frame {S} be attached at contact point c
with pc 3 and Rc = Rs defining its position and
orientation respectively. In the following analysis, left
superscripts of vectors are used to denote the frame of
case they are omitted. Let ptc = (r )n 3
and psc 3 denote the position of the contact point
c in frames {t} and {S} respectively. The existence
of a contact between the tip and the surface can be
mathematically expressed as follows:
pt + ptc = ps + psc (7)
Clearly psc = Rs s psc and ptc = Rt t ptc . Differentia-
tion of the latter equation yields:
ptc = t ptc + Rt t ptc (8)
Differentiating Eq. 7 using Eq. 8 and psc = Rs s psc
yields pt + t ptc = Rs s psc Rt t ptc which can be
written as follows:
(3)
Jf Vt = Vrel (9)
where Jf = [I3 (r )n] with I3 being the
identity matrix of dimension 3, is the Jacobian that
relates the generalized tip velocity Vt with the relative
(4) translational velocity of c given by Vrel = Rs s psc
Rt t ptc . Notice that relative velocity Vrel is defined
as the difference between the velocity of c on the
(5) contacted surface Rs s psc and the robot tip surface
Rt t ptc respectively.
Notice that multiplying Eq. 9 with nT using Eq. 5
(6) yields the velocity of the material deformation:
nT Vrel = (10)

that is zero in case of a rigid robotic fingertip. Addi-
tionally, multiplying Eq. 9 with t1T and t2T yields the
two coordinates of the relative translational velocity
Vrel of c along t1 , t2 , which define the sliding velocity
Vsl :
   
vsl1 t1T Vrel
Vsl   (11)
vsl2 t2T Vrel
Utilizing t1T n = t2T and t2T n = t1T , the sliding
velocity coordinates are related to the tip velocity as
follows:
vsl1 = t1T Vrel = [t1T (r )t2T ]Vt (12)
vsl2 = t2T Vrel = [t2T (r )t1T ]Vt (13) been treated as an undesirable feature and has been in
Moreover, taking into consideration (2), Eqs. 12, 13
can be written compactly as follows:
A(q)q = Vsl (14)
where
 
t1T (r )t2T
A(q) = J (q)
t2T (r )t1T
Remark 1 Setting Vsl = 0 in Eq. 14 expresses the
motion rolling constraints used in the constrained
modeling approaches in which the dynamic model
of the system is written as a differential algebraic
equation:
M(q)q + C(q, q)q + G(q) + J T (q)nw f + AT (q) = u
A(q)q = 0 (15)
with = [1 2 ]T being the rolling constraint forces.
The general assumption in the constrained model is
that the contact friction is sufficient to sustain tan-
gential forces generated by the controller up to a
level required by the rolling constraint forces which
are state dependent. This implies that we potentially
assume an infinite friction coefficient that does not
hold in practice. In real case scenarios sliding of
the robotic fingertip upon the contacted surface may
occur if we do not explicitly control these tangential
J Intell Robot Syst
forces. Therefore it is imperative to consider the
rolling motion as one of the control objectives and
design the controller accordingly.
Remark 2 Apart from the rolling motion, the spin
motion is often modeled as a constraint. The spin
motion occurs when sp = nT t = 0 that is when t
has a component on the normal to the surface direction
expressing rotation of the fingertip around the nor-
mal n-axis. As this motion does not contribute to the
translation of the contact point to another position on
the surface, the kinetic energy associated with it may
be considered wasted. If friction is considerable as it
is the case of soft fingertips, inducing a spin motion
may also require excessive torques. Thus, spinning has
general modeled by a non-spin constraint. The spin-
ning rotational velocity expressed in joint space is:
 
sp = 013 nT J (q)q (16)
4 Proposed Control Law and Rolling Motion
Trajectory Generation
In this work, we address the problem of designing a
control law that explicitly considers the rolling motion
as one of its objectives. Specifically, we aim at driv-
ing Vsl to zero in a prescribed manner. The solution
we propose in this work is the generation of a refer-
ence position trajectory for the ideal rolling case and
the tracking of this trajectory via a prescribed perfor-
mance tracking control law. The proposed control law
is of low complexity, in contrast to the structurally
and computationally complex controller [3] utilized in
[6]. The method to generate the proposed trajectory is
presented below, followed by the presentation of the
tracking controller.
4.1 The Proposed Rolling Motion Trajectory
Generation
Let us define the desired motion direction by the path
vector p 3 . Then, pure rolling motion along a
straight line path implies the following desired tip
rotational velocity:
d (t) = k d (t) (17)
J Intell Robot Syst

where d (t) is a desired rolling velocity and k 3 where Rt (0) is the initial orientation of the robot tip,
is a constant axis of rotation which is parallel to the while the desired tip position reference trajectory with
surface forming an orthogonal system with the path respect to the surface frame can be calculated by
vector p and n, i.e. kp = n; apparently, k T n = 0 and
k T p = 0. Notice that the axis of rotation k is uniquely  t

bd1 (t) = 0 t2T d (t)(r ) dt

defined from the above relationships.  t

 T bd2 (t) = 0 t1T d (t)(r ) dt (26)

Substituting Vt = ptT tT in Eqs. 12, 13 yields:

Equations 25, 26 express the preplanned orientation

vsl1 = t1T pt + t2T t (r ) (18) trajectory and the position reference trajectory for
vsl2 = t2T pt t1T t (r ) (19) rolling motion of the semi-spherical tip in the con-
tacted surface respectively.
Denoting the position coordinates along t1 , t2 of the
4.2 The Force/Position Prescribed Performance
fingertips position s pt with respect to frame {S} as:
Controller

b1 = t1T (pt ps ) Let fd (t)  denote the desired trajectory for the
b2 = t2T (pt ps ) (20) normal forces magnitude f that the robotic fingertip
must apply at the contact point. Trajectory bd (t) =
[bd1 (t) bd2 (t)]T with bd1 (t), bd2 (t) calculated from
we can alternatively write (18) and (19) as: Eq. 26 is the desired tip position trajectory upon the
contacted surface, while Rd (t) = [nd od ad ] derived
vsl1 = b1 + t2T t (r ) (21) from Eq. 25 expresses its desired orientation with
respect to the inertia frame {B}.
vsl2 = b2 t1T t (r ) (22)
Consequently, we may define the following posi-
tion, force and orientation tracking errors:
In pure rolling motion the desired translational tip
velocity trajectories can then be calculated from ep = b bd (t)
Eqs. 21 and 22 substituting t (t) by d (t) setting
ef = f fd (t) (27)
vsl1 = vsl2 = 0:
eo = 0.5(nt nd + ot od + at ad )

bd1 (t) = t2T d (t)(r ) (23)

bd2 (t) = t1T d (t)(r ) (24)
Notice that Eqs. 23, 24 are dynamically derived from
current values of which is calculated from Eq. 4
using current state measurements. In case of a rigid
tip = 0 and an offline calculation is possible.
Finally, integrating d (t) setting d (0) = 0 and
Eqs. 23, 24 setting b10 = t1T (pt (0) ps ) and b20 =
t2T (pt (0) ps ) yields the desired rotation d (t) and
contact position trajectories bd1 (t), bd2 (t) for pure
rolling. In fact, the desired tip orientation trajectory
can be calculated by
with b = [b1 b2 ]T calculated from Eq. 20. For the
orientation error eo , we have employed the outer prod-
uct formulation [14] of the actual Rt and the desired
Rd (t). This formulation relaxes issues related to rep-
resentation singularity and computational complexity
that are more severe in case the Euler angles represen-
tation is adopted. The orientation errors derivative can
be calculated as below:
eo = Lt Ld (t) (28)
where L is given by [14]:
 
1
L S(nt )S(nd ) + S(ot )S(od ) + S(at )S(ad )
Rd (t) = Rot (k, d (t))Rt (0) (25) 2
 J Intell Robot Syst

Our control design follows the prescribed perfor- Table 1 Robot parameters
mance methodology whose preliminaries are given
Links 1 2 3
in Appendix A. According to the prescribed perfor-
mance method and without loss of generality, we can Masses (Kg) 0.1 0.05 0.05
choose performance functions p (t), f (t), o (t) and Lengths (m) 0.4 0.3 0.2
overshoot parameters Mp , Mf , Mo for each error Inertias (Kg m2 )
component of ep , ef , eo respectively. Moreover, Mf Ix (104 ) 1.44 0.8 0.48
and f (t) are selected so that contact maintenance can Iy (106 ) 6.72 2.952 1.021
be guaranteed. In fact, we choose Mf , f (t) to sat- Iz (106 ) 6.72 2.952 1.021
isfy either (a) inft0 {Mf f (t) + fd (t)} > 0 in case
ef (0) 0 or (b) inft0 {f (t) + fd (t)} > 0 in case
ef (0) 0. Then, satisfaction of Eq. 41 for the force and p , f , o are positive design constants. We can
error ef further guarantees: map this signal in the joint space assuming a full rank
f >f >0 (29) Jacobian:

with f  inft0 {Mf f (t) + fd (t)} in case ef (0) qr = Js1 (q)Vr , qr nq (34)
0 and f  inft0 {f (t) + fd (t)} in case ef (0) 0, where Js (q) is defined as follows:
that implies contact maintenance [3].  T 
Taking into consideration (43), we define the fol- Rs 033
Js (q) = J (q) (35)
lowing modulated errors: 033 I3
ep ef
yp (t) = [yp1 (t) yp2 (t)]T = , yf (t) = Notice that in the redundant case, the Jacobian pseudo-
p (t) f (t)
eo
inverse can be used.
yo (t) = [yo1 (t) yo2 (t) yo3 (t)]T = (30) Let us define further the error:
o (t)
Consequently, we define the transformation errors for sq = q qr , sq nq (36)
position, force and orientation as follows:
and choose a performance function s (t) and an over-
p = [p1 p2 ]T , f  shoot parameter Ms , common to each of its com-
o = [o1 o2 o3 ]T (31) ponents. Notice that this performance bound is not
associated with the output error performance which
where components j i are calculated via the transfor-
is solely determined by the j (t), j {p, f, o}.
mation functions Tj i () utilizing (45), (48) with j
{p, f, o}, i = 1, 2 for j = p, i = 1 for j = f ,
i = 1, 2, 3 for j = o . (a)
We propose the following intermediate control sig- 0
nal Vr 6 at the task space:
0.02
vrp p (Tp1 + Tp )p
Vr vrf f (Tf1 + Tf )f (32) 0.04

vro o L1 (To1 + To )o 0 0.5 1 1.5 2

(b)
0.02
with
  0
1 dTpi
Tp  diag
i = 1, 2 , 0.02
p (t) d ypi (t)
  0.04

1 dTf 0.06
Tf 
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
f (t) d yf (t)
 
1 dToi Fig. 2 Position error. a Solid line - f r = 10. Dashed line -
To  diag i = 1, 2, 3 (33)
o (t) d (yoi (t)) constrained model. b f r = 0.1
J Intell Robot Syst

(a) 1.8
3
5 x 10
1.6 4

1.4 3

0 2
1.2
1
1
0
5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0.8 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04

(b) 0.6
5
0.4

0.2
0
0

0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2

5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2

Fig. 5 Contact sliding velocity Solid line-velocity coordinates.

Fig. 3 Force error. a Solid line - f r = 10. Dashed line - Dashed line - constrained model
constrained model. b f r = 0.1

Similarly to Eq. 30, we define the modulated error The proposed control law is now given by:
for sq :
u = Ts s (39)
sq
ys (t) = [ys1 (t) ... ysnq (t)]T = s (t) (37) where
 
1 dTsi
and subsequently the transformation error s as fol- Ts  diag , i = 1, ..., nq (40)
s (t) d (ysi (t))
lows:
and is a positive design constant. It is proven that the
s = [s1 ... snq ]T (38) controller (39), achieves the boundedness of p , f , o
and s thus guaranteeing prescribed performance for
the tracking errors ep , ef , eo as well as the errors sq
with its components calculated via the transformation while maintaining contact. The proof can be found in
functions Tsi (), i = 1, ..., nq utilizing (45), (48). the Appendix B.

2
0.39
0.702

0.38 X: 0.3729 0.701

Y: 0.3729
1.5
0.7
0.37
0.699
1
0.36 2 2.5 3

0.35 0.5
X: 0.3729
0.378 Y: 0.3729
0.34 0.374
X: 0.33 0.37
Y: 0.33 0
0.33
0.37 0.374 0.378
0.32 0.5
0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.37 0.38 0.39 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Fig. 4 Path on surface. Black solid line - f r = 10. Blue Fig. 6 Relative rotational angle . Dashed line - constrained
dashed line - constrained model. grey solid line - f r = 0.1 model
 J Intell Robot Syst

(a) (a)
0.4 10

0.3
X: 0.5 X: 2.5 5
0.2 Y: 0.2793 Y: 0.2793 5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
0.1
(b)
0 0.38
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
0.36
(b)
0.34 0.33
0.8 0 0.06
0.04 0.32
0.6 0.02 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
(c)
0.4 0 0.38
0 0.2 0.4
0.2 0.36
0.34 0.33
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.06
0.32
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Fig. 7 a Desired rotational velocity d (t). b Desired (grey line)

and actual rotation angle Fig. 8 Desired (grey line) and actual trajectories.(a) force (b),
(c) contact position coordinates on surface

5 Simulation Results model: f r tanh(vsli /f r )f(), i = 1, 2 where f r

In this Section, we will demonstrate the rolling per-
formance of a regulator designed under the rolling
constraint hypothesis, followed by the results of our
proposed approach. Simulations will show that the
constrained model regulator results in sliding, in most
friction cases. However, our methodology guarantees
a rolling contact motion even in the most unfavorable
friction conditions.
We consider a 5 d.o.f. robotic finger with rota-
tional joints and a soft semi-spherical tip of radius
r = 0.1 m, shown in Fig. 1 with parameters given
in Table 1. We also consider the contacted surface
depicted in Fig. 1 with ps = 031 . Concerning the
normal and the tangential force models we use: a)
f() = 50000 2 for the normal forces magnitude
and f r are positive constants. The constant f r is the
friction coefficient while f r defines a velocity region
in which the friction force depends on the velocity
magnitude. Four different friction coefficients f r are
considered ranging from 10 to 0.1 with f r set to 0.01.
The robot is initially at rest exerting a normal force f =
5.1N at the position pt (0) = [0.33 0.33 0.0899]T m
with orientation parameterized in the following ZYZ
Euler angles 1 (0) = 0.7854, 2 (0) = 1.5708,
3 (0) = 0.5236 rad. The target location is set to
ptd = [0.3729 0.3729 ]T and the desired touching
force to fd = 9N.
0.39

and b) a continuous variant of the Coulomb friction 0.38 X: 0.3729

Y: 0.3729

0.37

0.36

Table 2 Prescribed performance parameters 0.35 0.33

0.33 X: 0.33
Errors ef ep eo sq 0.34
X: 0.33
Y: 0.33
0.33
Y: 0.33
0.33 0.33
M 1 1 1 1
0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33
0 0.2 104 0.5 103 1 0.32
0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.37 0.38 0.39
102 106 106 102
l 6 15 15 3
Fig. 9 Desired (grey line) and actual path on surface
J Intell Robot Syst

0.2 1

0 0.8
0.5
0.6
0.2 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
5
x 10 0.4
10 0.5
0.00006 0.2
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04
5 0
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15
0
0.2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
5
x 10 0.4
10
0.00008
5 0.6
0
0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
0.8
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Fig. 10 Force/position error responses. Red dashed lines -

prescribed performance bounds Fig. 12 Error sq responses. Red dashed lines - prescribed
performance bounds

Initially, we consider a regulator whose design is
based on the rolling constrained model and is given by
the following control law: u = frd Jv (q)T (ptd pt )
C q + G(q) [16]. Simulation results for different fric-
tion coefficients as well as for the constrained robot
(15) are presented in Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Notice that
the required friction coefficient must be 10 or higher
in order to achieve the constrained model response.
Although position and force error responses (Figs. 2
and 3) show successful and fast target reaching follow-
ing a straight line path (Fig. 4) in most practical cases
the contact is sliding. In particular the sliding velocity
and the relative orientation of the fingertip depicted in
Figs. 5 and 6 reveal how the contact motion is sliding
more and more as the friction coefficient is reduced.
Using the axis k-angle parameterization for the fin-
gertips relative to Rt (0) orientation, Fig. 6 depicts
angle ; k remains constant and is omitted. Clearly as
f r takes lower values the fingertips rolling angle is
reduced and take even negative values at the lowest
friction indicating an initial spin. Also notice that in
case of the lowest f r , there is a small overshoot at the
end of the path (Fig. 4 - grey solid line) also observed
in the respective position error response (Fig. 2-b).
These results demonstrate the need to account rolling
as an explicit control objective.

4
x 10
2
0 0.1
0
2 0.08
0.0004
4 0 0.15
0.06
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
4
x 10 0.04
4 0.0004 0.02 X: 0.04998
2 0 Y: 0.0008689
0 0.15 0
0
2 0.02
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
4 0.04
x 10
2
0.06
0 0.08

2 0.1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05

Fig. 11 Orientation error responses. Red dashed lines - pre- Fig. 13 Contact sliding velocity coordinates at the beginning
scribed performance bounds of the motion
 J Intell Robot Syst

10 Table 3 Prescribed performance parameters utilized for the

KUKA LWR4+ control
5
Errors ef ep eo
0
M 1 1 1
0 5 0.05 0.05
5
5 1 103 5 103
0
10 5
l 6 20 20
10
15
15
0 5 10 15
3
x 10
20
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
desired prescribed performance bounds. Figure 13
depicts the two sliding velocity components upon the
surface which drop in approximately 0.05 seconds
Fig. 14 Input torques
to zero; hence, a rolling motion is clearly achieved
throughout almost the whole of simulation time, set
at 3 seconds. In fact, simulation results with the con-
strained model coincide with those depicted and are
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our omitted for clarity reasons. Last, input torques for
proposed approach even in the case of adverse fric- joints 3,4,5 remain less than 5Nm after an initial peak
tion conditions, we select a friction value of 0.1. We of 18.5Nm as shown in Fig. 14. Input torques for
further specify a desired normal force trajectory to the first two joints are negligible and thus are not
smoothly bring the force to the desired value of the displayed.
regulation case: fd (t) = 4e2t + 9. The path vector
p = [cos(/4) sin(/4) 0]T points at the target loca-
tion. A trapezoidal profile is designed for the desired 6 Experimental Results
rolling velocity d (t) and depicted in Fig. 7-a with
the performance parameter values utilized in the con-
We go beyond simulations, presenting in this section,
troller given in Table 2. Control gains are selected as experiments performed in the 7-dof KUKA LWR4+
af = 0.1, aj = 0.001 for j = {p, o}, as = 2, f = 1,
robotic manipulator where we attached a soft spher-
p = 0.5, o = 0.05, = 0.5.
ical ball of radius r = 0.0475 m (Fig. 15). We test
Desired (grey line) and actual (blue line) trajec-
tories are shown in Figs. 7, 8 and 9. They clearly
indicate that the desired trajectories are followed with
great precision. This is also confirmed by Figs. 10, 0.7 x 10
3

11 and 12 depicting tracking errors ef , ep and eo 0.6 10

as well as error sq , which are all kept inside the
0.5 5

0.4 0
0 0.1 0.2
0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

(a) (b)

Fig. 15 Initial and final configuration Fig. 16 Preplanned (grey line) and actual rotation angle
J Intell Robot Syst

3
0.52 x 10
4
0.5
2
0 3 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
x 10
5 0
0 2
5 4
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
3
6 x 10
4
4 2
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 2
4
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Fig. 17 Desired (grey line) and actual position on the surface
and normal force
Fig. 19 Position error responses. Dashed lines - prescribed
performance bounds

ficients. The path vector is set at: p = [0 1 0]T

the rolling performance of our control methodology
denoting a tip motion across the axis YB of inertia
in the kinematic level, utilizing control signals (34)
frame {B}. The same trapezoidal profile, as in the
as joint velocity references. Inertia frame {B} and
simulation section, is selected for the desired rolling
surface frame {S} are coincident with the KUKAs
velocity d (t) (Fig. 7-a). Performance parameter val-
base frame. The initial robot configuration is q =
ues are given in Table 3 and control gains are selected
[90 54.5 0 107.4 0 1.6 0]T degrees and is shown
as af = 0.8, ap = 0.001, ao = 0.01, f = 0.002,
in Fig. 15 - a while the exerted initial normal force is
p = 5, o = 3. The sampling time control interval is
f(0) = 3.44148 N. We specify the following desired
Ts = 1ms.
normal force trajectory: fd (t) = (f(0) 6)e2t + 6
Figures 15a - b show the initial and the final
which implies a final desired value of 6 N. Normal
configuration the robot adopted at the end of its tra-
force measurements are filtered before utilized in our
jectory. Figures 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 display
control law through a moving average filter of 50 coef-
the experimental results. Specifically, Fig. 16 shows

4
x 10
5 5

5
0 4 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0
x 10
5

5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Fig. 20 Force error response. Dashed lines - prescribed perfor-

Fig. 18 Contact sliding velocity coordinates mance bounds
 J Intell Robot Syst

0.01 the intermediate control signal Vr (32) which is the

0 task space velocity reference for the robots tip.
0.01
0 3 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
x 10
5
7 Conclusions
0
5
10 This work introduces contact rolling as a control
0 3
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 objective. Assuming a straight line path towards a
x 10
5
desired position target, the fingertips translational
0 reference velocity is derived from rolling conditions
5
10 given a planned desired rotational trajectory. More-
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 over, a prescribed performance position/force tracking
controller is designed, guaranteeing convergence to
Fig. 21 Orientation error responses. Dashed lines - prescribed rolling reference trajectories with preselected speed
performance bounds and accuracy. The proposed controller is compared
with a regulator designed on the basis of a rolling
constrained model. As it is demonstrated by simula-
tions, under the action of the regulator, the contact is
proportionally more sliding than rolling as the fric-
the planned and actual trajectory of the tips rotation tion coefficient gets smaller. On the other hand, rolling
angle while Fig. 17 shows the calculated reference and is achieved by the proposed scheme as fast as pre-
actual position on the contacted surface as well as the scribed even with a friction coefficient as low as
normal force trajectory. Figure 18 shows contact slid- 0.1. Experimenting with a KUKA LWR4+ in the
ing velocity coordinates which remain as low as 104 kinematic level shows excellent rolling performance.
m/sec indicating a pure rolling motion. Figures 19 Future work includes experimenting with a robot hand
21 depict the position, force and orientation errors in rolling manipulations.
respectively which all remain within the prescribed
performance region as expected. Lastly, Fig. 22 shows Acknowledgments This research is co-financed by the EU-
ESF and Greek national funds through the operational program
Education and Lifelong Learning of the National Strategic
Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program
ARISTEIA I, Grant number 506.
3
x 10
20
10 Appendix A: Prescribed Performance
0
0.05
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Preliminaries
0
0.05
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
x 10
3
According to [4], prescribed performance is achieved
6
0
if tracking error e (t)  evolves strictly within a
4
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
predefined region bounded by a decaying function of
0 time as follows:
0.2 
0.4
M (t) < e (t) < (t) , e (0) 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 t 0
0.1
0
(t) < e (t) < M (t) , e (0) 0
0.1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 (41)
0.1
0
0.1
where 0 M 1 and (t) is a bounded, smooth,
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
strictly positive function satisfying limt (t) =
> 0 called performance function [4]. An example
Fig. 22 Intermediate control signal Vr . Signals vrp , vrf in of the prescribed performance error evolution is shown
m/sec. Signal vro in rad/sec in Fig. 23.
J Intell Robot Syst
Fig. 23 Prescribed performance
As Eq. 41 implies, only one set of the perfor-
Prescribed performance is introduced by considering
the following error transformation:
(t) = T (y(t)) (45)
where (t) is the transformed error and T () is a
smooth, strictly increasing function defining a bijec-
tive mapping:

T : (M, 1) (, ) , e (0) 0
(46)
T : (1, M) (, ) , e (0) 0
Notice that the inverse function T 1 () exists and is
a well defined and saturated function, bounded as:
M < T 1 () < 1 for e (0) 0 and 1 <
T 1 () < M for e (0) 0. The derivative of (t) is
given by:
mance bounds is employed and specifically the one
associated with the sign of e (0).
y(t) =
e(t) (t)y(t)
A candidate performance function is the exponen-
tial
(t) = (0 ) exp (lt) + (42)
with 0 , , l strictly positive constants. The constant T (y(t))=
0 = (0) is selected such that Eq. 41 is satisfied
at t = 0. The constant represents the maximum
allowable size of e (t) at the steady state that can
be practically zero. Furthermore, constant l which is
related to the decreasing rate of (t) introduces a
lower bound on the required speed of convergence of
e (t). Last, the maximum allowable overshoot is pre-
scribed less than M (0) and may even become zero
by setting M = 0.
Let us define y(t) as the error e(t) modulated by
the performance function (t):
e(t)
y(t) = (43)
(t)
Its derivative is given by:
 
dT dT 1
(t) =
d y(t) d y(t) (t)
(47)
A candidate transformation function, could be
 
a ln M+y(t) , in case e (0) 0
 1y(t)  (48)
a ln 1+y(t) , in case e (0) 0
My(t)
where a is a positive design constant. As Eqs. 46 and
48 imply the choice of the mapping T () depends only
on the sign of e (0).
Owing to the properties of the error transformation,
we satisfy the prescribed performance (41) for all t
0, by keeping (t) bounded. The bounds of (t) do not
affect the evolution of e (t) which is solely prescribed
by Eq. 41 and thus by the selection of the performance
function (t) as well as the constant M.
Appendix B
Substituting q from Eq. 2 and qr from Eq. 34 while
utilizing pt = Rs s pt and Eq. 35, the error sq defined
in Eq. 36 can be written as follows:
   s  
1 pt
y(t) = e(t) (t)y(t) (44) sq = Js1 (q) Vr (49)
(t) t
 J Intell Robot Syst

Utilizing (4), (7) and (20), the robot tips position with where
respect to frame {S} is calculated as follows:  
h(q, q) = M 1 (q) C(q, q)q + G(q) + J T (q)F
s
pt = RsT (pt ps ) = [bT (r )]T (50)
while qr can be calculated from Eq. 34:
Substituting the derivative of Eq. 50 in Eq. 49 yields:
qr = Js1 (q)Vr + Js1 (q)Vr
 b  (55)
sq = Js1 (q) Vr (51) Subtracting p (t)yp (t) from both sides of the first
t equation in Eq. 54 and multiplying from left by p1(t)
Considering Vr from Eq. 32, we can write (51) as while taking into consideration (44) we obtain:
 
follows: 1
yp (t) = evp + vrp bd (t) p (t)yp (t) (56)
evp p (t)
sq = Js1 (q) evf (52) Similarly for the rest of the equations in Eq. 54:
evo
 
where: 1
yf (t) = f( )evf + f( )vrf fd (t) f (t)yf (t)
f (t)
 
1
evp = bvrp , evf = vrf , evo = t vro yo (t) = Levo + Lvro Ld (t) o (t)yo (t) (57)
o (t)
(53)  
1
ys (t) = h(q, q) M 1 (q)Ts s qr s (t)ys (t)
s (t)
Differentiating task errors (27) and error sq (36)
utilizing (1),(6),(28),(39) and (53) yields:
Taking together (56) and (57) we can write compactly:
ep = evp + vrp bd (t) y(t) = z(t, y(t)) (58)
ef = f()evf + f()vrf fd (t) (54) where
eo = Levo + Lvro Ld (t)  T
1 y(t) = ypT (t)yf (t)yoT (t)ysT (t) (6+nq ) (59)
sq = h(q, q) M (q)Ts s qr

Let us define the set: = p f o s where:


Mk < yki (t) < 1 t in case eki (0) 0
k  yki (t)  : k {p, f, o, s} (60)
1 < yki (t) < Mk t in case eki (0) 0

where for k = p, i = 1, 2, for k = f , i = 1, for k = o, bounded as in Eq. 41 while the transformed errors
i = 1, 2, 3 and for k = s, i = 1, ..., nq . According to p , f , o and s are
 well defined.
 Multiplying (56)
the prescribed performance methodology (Appendix dT
from left by diag pi
, i = 1, 2, taking into
A), parameters k (0), k = p, f, o, s are selected so d ypi (t)
that y(0) . Since z(t, y(t)) in Eq. 58 is locally consideration (47) and utilizing (33) we obtain:
Lipschitz in y(t) on the set , continuous and locally
 
integrable on t for each y(t) , there exist a unique p = Tp evp + vrp bd (t) p (t)yp (t) (61)
solution y(t): [0, max ) of Eq. 58 on the time
interval [0, max ) with max > 0 such that y(t) ,
t [0, max ) [15]. Similarly, regarding the equations in Eq. 57 we derive:
Since y(t) , t [0, max ) or equivalently

f = Tf f()evf + f()vrf fd (t) f (t)yf (t)

yp (t) p , yf (t) f , yo (t) o and ys (t)  
s , t [0, max ), we deduce that inside the time o = To Levo + Lvro Ld (t) o (t)yo (t) (62)
interval [0, max ) the errors ep , ef , eo and sq are

s = Ts h(q, q) M 1 (q)Ts s qr s (t)ys (t)

J Intell Robot Syst

Step 1: Continuing with our analysis, since the errors ep ,

ef , eo and sq are bounded y(t) , t [0, max )
Consider the positive definite and radially unbounded
and J (q), Js (q) are also bounded, Eq. 52 implies the
function:
boundedness of evp , evf , evo . Hence we can write:
1 1 1
V1 = p 2 + f2 + o 2 (63) evp  evp , |evf | evf , evo  evo , y(t) ,
2 2 2 t [0, max ) for some positive constants evp , evf ,
The time derivative of Eq. 63 utilizing (61), (62) and evo . Taking into consideration that sup{yki (t)} = 1,
substituting (32) yields: k, i along with Proposition 1, we can bound V1
V1 = ap p 2 af f()f2 ao o 2 invoking the smoothness of the desired trajectories as
well as the performance functions as below:
ap pT Tp 2 af f()(f Tf )2
V1 ap p 2 af f f2 ao o 2
ao oT To 2
  ap pT Tp 2 af f (f Tf )2 ao oT To 2 +
pT Tp p (t)yp (t) + bd (t) evp  

  + pT Tp  2 sup{|p (t)|} + sup{bd (t)} + evp +
f Tf f (t)yf (t) + fd (t) f()evf
t0 t0
 
  + |f Tf | sup{|f (t)|} + sup{|fd (t)|} + f evf +
oT To o (t)yo (t) + Ld (t) Levo (64) 
t0 t0


+ oT To  3 sup{|o (t)|} + sup{d (t)} + evo (67)
The following proposition regarding the normal force t0 t0
f () (3) is necessary in the subsequent analysis:
Completing the squares, we can finally arrive at:
Proposition 1 Given a selection of Mf , f (t) to sat-
isfy: (a) inft0 {Mf f (t) + fd (t)} > 0 in case V1 c1 2 + c0 (68)
ef (0) 0 or (b) inft0 {f (t) + fd (t)} > 0 in case
where:
ef (0) 0, there exist positive constants f , f such
that: = [pT f oT ]T (69)
0 < f f () f , yf (t) f (65) for all y(t) , t [0, max ) where c1 , c0 are
positive constants defined as:
Proof Taking into consideration (29), it can be
straightforwardly verified that for all yf (t) f : c1  min{ap , af f , ao }
 2

0<f f f (66) 2 supt0 {|p (t)|} + supt0 {bd (t)} + evp
c0  +
4ap
where f  inft0 {Mf f (t) + fd (t)}, f   2
supt0 {f (t) + fd (t)} in case ef (0) 0 and f  supt0 {|f (t)|} + supt0 {|fd (t)|} + f evf
inft0 {f (t) + fd (t)}, f  supt0 {Mf f (t) + +
4af f
+
fd (t)} in case ef (0) 0, with 0 < f f implying  2

contact maintenance. From the definition of the defor- 3 supt0 {|o (t)|} + supt0 {d (t)} + evo
mation function as well as Eq. 66, the property 
of the + (70)
4ao
df( )
inverse function derivative i.e. d = 1
df1 (f)
and
df
Thus from Eq. 68, we can deduce the uniform ulti-
the extreme value Theorem, we obtain: mate
 
boundedness of  with respect to the set E1 =
c0
0 < f f () f yf (t) f
,   :  c1 , hence p , f and o are all
  bounded as well. Consequently, Tp , Tf , To Eq. 33
where f  minf f f df1 1
and f  are also bounded. In turn, utilizing (32) it is easy to
show that Vr is bounded y(t) , t [0, max ).
(f)
  df

1 From Eq. 34 we may also obtain the boundedness of

maxf f f df1 (f)
.
df
qr and subsequently from Eq. 36 the boundedness of
 J Intell Robot Syst

q, t [0, max ) that leads to the boundedness of Vt Thus, Eq. 73 becomes:

(2). In addition, p , f and o are bounded because of
Eqs. 61, 62 leading to the boundedness of ep , ef , eo 1 T m
V2 s Ts 2 +
since Eq. 47 holds generally. After some minor cal- 2 m 2( 1)
culations while taking into consideration that J(q, q),  2

Js (q, q) are bounded y(t) , t [0, max ), it is h + q + nq sup{|s (t)|} (74)
t0
easily shown that Vr remains bounded as well, which
in turn yields the boundedness of qr from Eq. 55. or compactly:
Finally, we can deduce from Eq. 53 that b and
remain also bounded t [0, max ). V2 c3 sT Ts 2 + c2 (75)
Step 2:
where c3 , c2 are positive constants defined as:
Consider the positive definite and radially unbounded
function: 1
c3 
2 m
1  2
V2 = s 2 (71) m
2 c2  h + q + nq sup{|s (t)|} (76)
2( 1) t0
The time derivative of Eq. 71 can be calculated using
the last equation of Eq. 62 as follows: Hence from Eq. 75, we can deduce the uniform ulti-
mate boundedness
 of sT Ts  with respect
 to the set
V2 = sT Ts M 1 Ts s c2

E2 = sT Ts   : sT Ts  c3 . There-
sT Ts h(q, q) + qr + s (t)ys (t) (72)
fore since sT Ts  with > 0 a constant
Taking into consideration sup{ysi (t)} = 1, i = upper bound, it is easy to conclude that |si Tsi | =
1, ..., nq , y(t) , t [0, max ) and qr q, |si ||Tsi | , i = 1, ..., nq . Additionally, 0 <
h(q, q) h for some positive q, h since q, q and s () < s (t) < s (0)holds by definition and trans-
qr are already proven to be bounded in Step 1 , we can formation function Tsi ysi (t) is strictly increasing
upper bound (72) as follows: leading to dTsi
si > 0 for a constant si ,
d ysi (t)
i = 1, ..., nq . Thus, Tsi = dTsi
1 si
s (0) ,
V2 sT Ts 2 + sT Ts  d ysi (t) s (t)
m  i = 1, ..., nq which in terms gives:

h + q + nq sup{|s (t)|} (73)
t0 s (0)
|si | (77)
si
Term m sT Ts 2 can be split as below:
The boundedness of s is deduced from Eq. 77,
1 T y(t) , t [0, max ) which combined with
sT Ts 2 =  Ts 2
m m s the boundedness of Ts (40), y(t) leads to
1 T 1 T the fact that the control law u (39) is also bounded
 Ts 2  Ts 2
2 m s 2 m s t [0, max ).
with > 1 a constant. Subsequently, we can write Step 3
after completing the squares:
Concerning the solution y(t): [0, max ) of
 
Eq. 58 on the time interval [0, max ) with max > 0,

1 T
s Ts 2 + sT Ts  h + q + nq sup{|s (t)|} if max < then for any compact set there
2 m t0 exists a time instant t [0, max ) such that y(t )
/
 2
m [15]. We will proceed to show that this supposition
h + q + nq sup{|s (t)|}
2( 1) t0 leads to contradiction.
J Intell Robot Syst

Suppose that max < . We have proven the stated at the beginning of Step 3, that there exists a
boundedness of  and s , y(t) , t time instant t
[0, max ) such that y(t
)
/
if
[0, max ), hence we can write: max < . Hence, max = and thus y(t) ,
t 0, which completes the proof.
 1
s  2 (78)
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J Intell Robot Syst
Leonidas Droukas was born in Drama on December 17, 1984.
He graduated from the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
in July 2008. He is currently a PhD candidate in the same
Department. His research interests include prescribed perfor-
mance robot control, rolling contact motion planning and
control and object grasping.
Zoe Doulgeri is currently a Professor in Robotics and Control
of Manufacturing Systems with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thes-
saloniki, Greece. She received a diploma in Electrical Engineer-
ing in 1980 from the Aristotle University, an MSc in Control
Systems in 1982, an MSc in Social and Economic Studies in
1983 and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1987 from Impe-
rial College, London, UK. Since 2012 she serves as an editor
in the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems. Her current
research interests include object grasping and manipulation by
robot fingers, non-model based control of robotic systems with
prescribed performance guarantees, control of flexible joint
robots, human like reaching motion for redundant manipulators
and physical human-robot interaction.