Robust Single-Point Pushing with Force Feedback

We present the first controller for quasistatic robotic planar pushing with single-point contact using only force feedback. We consider a mobile robot equipped with a force-torque sensor to measure the force at the contact point with the pushed object (the “slider”). The parameters of the slider are not known to the controller, nor is feedback on the slider’s pose. We assume that the global position of the contact point is always known and that the approximate initial position of the slider is provided. We focus specifically on the case when it is desired to push the slider along a straight line. Simulations and real-world experiments show that our controller yields stable pushes that are robust to a wide range of slider parameters and state perturbations.