Introduction

Abstract

Robotic systems are a well studied field of application for control theory. Robot arms designed for industrial applications traditionally are treated as mechanical multi-body systems, where several rigid bodies are connected by actuated joints. In the past few years the robotics community evolved growing interest in robots which are designed for the use in service robotics scenarios, in which the robots will have to work close to humans. For this kind of applications the robotic systems are desired to be built up very light. Consequently, these systems usually have considerable elasticity. Therefore, the need for control strategies arises which take account not only of the rigid body dynamics but also of the joint flexibility.