Abstract
This paper describes a method to control position of a manipulator which is composed of active joints and passive joints. The passive joints have holding brakes instead of actuators. While the brakes are released, the passive joints are indirectly controlled by the motion of the active joints using coupled characteristics of manipulator dynamics. While the brakes are held, the passive joints are fixed and the active joints are controlled. The condition that ensures the controllability of the passive joints is obtained. An algorithm for PTP control of the manipulator is also presented. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated by simulation experiments for a two degrees of freedom manipulator.
