49,889 research outputs found
Keep Rollin' - Whole-Body Motion Control and Planning for Wheeled Quadrupedal Robots
We show dynamic locomotion strategies for wheeled quadrupedal robots, which
combine the advantages of both walking and driving. The developed optimization
framework tightly integrates the additional degrees of freedom introduced by
the wheels. Our approach relies on a zero-moment point based motion
optimization which continuously updates reference trajectories. The reference
motions are tracked by a hierarchical whole-body controller which computes
optimal generalized accelerations and contact forces by solving a sequence of
prioritized tasks including the nonholonomic rolling constraints. Our approach
has been tested on ANYmal, a quadrupedal robot that is fully torque-controlled
including the non-steerable wheels attached to its legs. We conducted
experiments on flat and inclined terrains as well as over steps, whereby we
show that integrating the wheels into the motion control and planning framework
results in intuitive motion trajectories, which enable more robust and dynamic
locomotion compared to other wheeled-legged robots. Moreover, with a speed of 4
m/s and a reduction of the cost of transport by 83 % we prove the superiority
of wheeled-legged robots compared to their legged counterparts.Comment: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter
Maximum likelihood parametric reconstruction of forest vertical structure from inclined laser quadrat sampling.
Abstract
Forest vertical structure is critical to ecological function, and provides a crucial link to air- and spaceborne remote sensing (including LiDAR), but is difficult to measure from the ground. Laser point quadrat sampling has been suggested as one alternative, but previous statistical approaches to modeling forest structure using such data have required impractical sample sizes. Here, I develop the theory for maximum likelihood estimation of a parametric model of forest vertical structure, and illustrate it using inclined point quadrat sampling with a handheld laser. Results from three forest stands in arctic Norway suggest excellent qualitative agreement with structure derived from alternative methods. The approach generalizes readily to other hardware configurations, including terrestrial laser scanning
Falling liquid films with blowing and suction
Flow of a thin viscous film down a flat inclined plane becomes unstable to
long wave interfacial fluctuations when the Reynolds number based on the mean
film thickness becomes larger than a critical value (this value decreases as
the angle of inclination with the horizontal increases, and in particular
becomes zero when the plate is vertical). Control of these interfacial
instabilities is relevant to a wide range of industrial applications including
coating processes and heat or mass transfer systems. This study considers the
effect of blowing and suction through the substrate in order to construct from
first principles physically realistic models that can be used for detailed
passive and active control studies of direct relevance to possible experiments.
Two different long-wave, thin-film equations are derived to describe this
system; these include the imposed blowing/suction as well as inertia, surface
tension, gravity and viscosity. The case of spatially periodic blowing and
suction is considered in detail and the bifurcation structure of forced steady
states is explored numerically to predict that steady states cease to exist for
sufficiently large suction speeds since the film locally thins to zero
thickness giving way to dry patches on the substrate. The linear stability of
the resulting nonuniform steady states is investigated for perturbations of
arbitrary wavelengths, and any instabilities are followed into the fully
nonlinear regime using time-dependent computations. The case of small amplitude
blowing/suction is studied analytically both for steady states and their
stability. Finally, the transition between travelling waves and non-uniform
steady states is explored as the suction amplitude increases
Computer-aided analysis and design of the shape rolling process for producing turbine engine airfoils
Mild steel (AISI 1018) was selected as model cold-rolling material and Ti-6Al-4V and INCONEL 718 were selected as typical hot-rolling and cold-rolling alloys, respectively. The flow stress and workability of these alloys were characterized and friction factor at the roll/workpiece interface was determined at their respective working conditions by conducting ring tests. Computer-aided mathematical models for predicting metal flow and stresses, and for simulating the shape-rolling process were developed. These models utilize the upper-bound and the slab methods of analysis, and are capable of predicting the lateral spread, roll-separating force, roll torque and local stresses, strains and strain rates. This computer-aided design (CAD) system is also capable of simulating the actual rolling process and thereby designing roll-pass schedule in rolling of an airfoil or similar shape. The predictions from the CAD system were verified with respect to cold rolling of mild steel plates. The system is being applied to cold and hot isothermal rolling of an airfoil shape, and will be verified with respect to laboratory experiments under controlled conditions
A Hybrid Approach for Trajectory Control Design
This work presents a methodology to design trajectory tracking feedback
control laws, which embed non-parametric statistical models, such as Gaussian
Processes (GPs). The aim is to minimize unmodeled dynamics such as undesired
slippages. The proposed approach has the benefit of avoiding complex
terramechanics analysis to directly estimate from data the robot dynamics on a
wide class of trajectories. Experiments in both real and simulated environments
prove that the proposed methodology is promising.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure
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