Robotic Valve Turning: Axial Misalignment Correction Using Reaction Torque Feedback

arXiv:2609.24413v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In this work, we propose a haptic update control law that uses reaction torques to correct axial misalignment during robotic valve manipulation. Unlike vision-based estimates, which can be affected by calibration errors, occlusion, and uncertainty in the contact geometry, reaction torques arise directly from the physical interaction between the gripper and valve. A geometric relationship exists between the error (misalignment) vector and these torques. The primary aim of this work is to propose a stable controller exploiting this geometric property. Our control law is proven to be uniformly asymptotically stable. Simulations are performed for verification. Furthermore, we experimentally test the robustness of our method using a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm for initial misalignments ranging from -15^irc to 15^irc at 3 different valve positions and report the resulting data distribution. The absolute value of the median misalignment across all 18 test cases is found to be within 2.46^irc and that of reaction torques within 0.23Nm.

Source: arXiv cs.RO | 2026-09-22