Publication
Robust Adaptive Backstepping Impedance Control of Robots in Unknown Environments
G. Reza Nazmara; Alap Kshirsagar; Jan Peters; A. Pedro Aguiar
In: Computing Research Repository eprint Journal (CoRR), Vol. abs/2604.09323, Pages 1-8, arXiv, 2026.
Abstract
This paper presents a Robust Adaptive Backstepping Impedance Control (RABIC)
strategy for robots operating in contact-rich and uncertain environments. The proposed control
strategy considers the complete coupled dynamics of the system and explicitly accounts for
key sources of uncertainty, including external disturbances and unmodeled dynamics, while
not requiring the robot’s dynamic parameters in implementation. We propose a backstepping-
based adaptive impedance control scheme for the inner loop to track the reference impedance
model. To handle uncertainties, we employ a Taylor series–based estimator for system dynamics,
and an adaptive estimator for determining the upper bound of external forces. Stability
analysis demonstrates the semi-global practical finite-time stability of the overall system. To
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a simulated mobile manipulator scenario
and experimental evaluations on a real Franka Emika Panda robot were conducted. The proposed
approach exhibits safer performance compared to PD control while ensuring trajectory tracking
and force monitoring. Overall, the RABIC framework provides a solid basis for future research
on adaptive and learning-based impedance control for coupled mobile and fixed serially linked
manipulators.