Mid-Level MPC and 6 DOF Output Path Following for Robotic Manipulators

In this article we discuss some of the benefits of using an MPC as a mid-level controller between the path generator and the low-level joint controller of a robot system. The MPC handles rudimentary runtime constraints that are not considered during path generation. We compare two task space oriented controllers: the model predictive path following controller and the model predictive trajectory tracking controller. We describe a 6 degrees of freedom reference path in terms of three points, and use this to experimentally verify the results with a UR5 robot and a UR3 robot.