Advanced Strategies for Robot Manipulators

Amongst the robotic systems, robot manipulators have proven themselves to be of increasing importance and are widely adopted to substitute for human in repetitive and/or hazardous tasks. Modern manipulators are designed complicatedly and need to do more precise, crucial and critical tasks. So, the simple traditional control methods cannot be efficient, and advanced control strategies with considering special constraints are needed to establish. In spite of the fact that groundbreaking researches have been carried out in this realm until now, there are still many novel aspects which have to be explored

Design, Control and Motion Planning for a Novel Modular Extendable Robotic Manipulator

This dissertation discusses an implementation of a design, control and motion planning for a novel extendable modular redundant robotic manipulator in space constraints, which robots may encounter for completing required tasks in small and constrained environment. The design intent is to facilitate the movement of the proposed robotic manipulator in constrained environments, such as rubble piles. The proposed robotic manipulator with multi Degree of Freedom (m-DOF) links is capable of elongating by 25% of its nominal length. In this context, a design optimization problem with multiple objectives is also considered. In order to identify the benefits of the proposed design strategy, the reachable workspace of the proposed manipulator is compared with that of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) serpentine robot. The simulation results show that the proposed manipulator has a relatively efficient reachable workspace, needed in constrained environments. The singularity and manipulability of the designed manipulator are investigated. In this study, we investigate the number of links that produces the optimal design architecture of the proposed robotic manipulator. The total number of links decided by a design optimization can be useful distinction in practice. Also, we have considered a novel robust bio-inspired Sliding Mode Control (SMC) to achieve favorable tracking performance for a class of robotic manipulators with uncertainties. To eliminate the chattering problem of the conventional sliding mode control, we apply the Brain Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Control (BELBIC) to adaptively adjust the control input law in sliding mode control. The on-line computed parameters achieve favorable system robustness in process of parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. The simulation results demonstrate that our control strategy is effective in tracking high speed trajectories with less chattering, as compared to the conventional sliding mode control. The learning process of BLS is shown to enhance the performance of a new robust controller. Lastly, we consider the potential field methodology to generate a desired trajectory in small and constrained environments. Also, Obstacle Collision Avoidance (OCA) is applied to obtain an inverse kinematic solution of a redundant robotic manipulator

Kinematic and dynamic analysis of a serial manipulator with local closed loop mechanisms

This paper addresses the kinematic and dynamic modelling and analysis for a robot arm consisting of two hydraulic cylinders driving two revolute joints of the arm. The two cylinders and relevant links of the robot constitute two local closed kinematic chains added to the main robot mechanism. Therefore, the number of the generalized coordinates of the mechanical system is increased, and the mathematical modelling is more complex that requires a formulation of constraint equations with respect to the local closed chains. By using the Lagrangian formulation with Lagrangian Multipliers, the dynamic equations are first derived with respect to all extended generalized coordinates. Then a compact form of the dynamic equations is yielded by canceling the Multipliers. Since the obtained dynamic equations are expressed in terms of independent generalized coordinates which are selected according to active joint variables of the arm, the equations could be best suitable for control law design and implementation. The simulation of the forward and inverse kinematics and dynamics of the arm demonstrates the motion behavior of the robot system

A review of dynamics design methods for high-speed and high-precision CNC machine tool feed systems

With the development of CNC machine tools toward high speed and high precision, the traditional static design methods can hardly meet the demand. Hence, in this paper, the dynamics matching design methods of existing CNC machine tool feed systems were investigated and analyzed. Further, sub-system coupling mechanisms and optimization design studies were carried out for each sub-system. First, the required kinematic indexes must be achieved when designing the feed system dynamics of high-speed, high-precision CNC machine tools. Second, the CNC machine tool feed systems generally have four sub-systems: motion process, control system, motor, and mechanical structure. The coupling effect between the sub-systems should also be considered in the design. Based on the dynamics design, each sub-system should be optimized to maximize the system dynamic performance with minimum resource allocation. Finally, based on the review, future research directions within the field were detected

Flexible joint robotic manipulator: Modeling and design of robust control law

This paper presents modeling and sophisticated control of a single Degree Of Freedom (DOF) flexible robotic arm. The derived model is based on Euler-Lagrange approach while the first and second order (super twisting) Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is proposed as a non-linear control strategy. The control laws are subjected to various test inputs including step and sinusoids to demonstrate their tracking efficiency by observing transient and steady state behaviours. Both orders of SMC are then compared to characterize the control performance in terms of robustness, handling external disturbances and chattering. Results dictate that the super twisting SMC is more accurate and robust against the external noise and chattering phenomena compared to the first order SMC

Mechatronic development and dynamic control of a 3-DOF parallel manipulator

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines: An International Journal, 40:4, 434-452 [September 2012] [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/15397734.2012.687292The aim of this article is to develop, from the mechatronic point of view, a low-cost parallel manipulator (PM) with 3-degrees of freedom (DOF). The robot has to be able to generate and control one translational motion (heave) and two rotary motions (rolling and pitching). Applications for this kind of parallel manipulator can be found at least in driving-motion simulation and in the biomechanical field. An open control architecture has been developed for this manipulator, which allows implementing and testing different dynamic control schemes for a PM with 3-DOF. Thus, the robot developed can be used as a test bench where control schemes can be tested. In this article, several control schemes are proposed and the tracking control responses are compared. The schemes considered are based on passivity-based control and inverse dynamic control. The control algorithm considers point-to-point control or tracking control. When the controller considers the system dynamics, an identified model has been used. The control schemes have been tested on a virtual robot and on the actual prototype. © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Plan Nacional de I+D, Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia (FEDER-CICYT) for the partial financing of this study under the projects DPI2009-13830-C02-01 and DPI2010-20814-C02-(01, 02). This work was also supported in part by the CDCHT-ULA Grant I-1286-11-02-B.Vallés Miquel, M.; Díaz-Rodríguez, M.; Valera Fernández, Á.; Mata Amela, V.; Page Del Pozo, AF. (2012). Mechatronic development and dynamic control of a 3-DOF parallel manipulator. 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A novel adaptive PD-type iterative learning control of the PMSM servo system with the friction uncertainty in low speeds

High precision demands in a large number of emerging robotic applications strengthened the role of the modern control laws in the position control of the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) servo system. This paper proposes a learning-based adaptive control approach to improve the PMSM position tracking in the presence of the friction uncertainty. In contrast to most of the reported works considering the servos operating at high speeds, this paper focuses on low speeds in which the friction stemmed deteriorations become more obvious. In this paper firstly, a servo model involving the Stribeck friction dynamics is formulated, and the unknown friction parameters are identified by a genetic algorithm from the offline data. Then, a feedforward controller is designed to inject the friction information into the loop and eliminate it before causing performance degradations. Since the friction is a kind of disturbance and leads to uncertainties having time-varying characters, an Adaptive Proportional Derivative (APD) type Iterative Learning Controller (ILC) named as the APD-ILC is designed to mitigate the friction effects. Finally, the proposed control approach is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment and it is compared with the conventional Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller, Proportional ILC (P-ILC), and Proportional Derivative ILC (PD-ILC) algorithms. The results confirm that the proposed APD-ILC significantly lessens the effects of the friction and thus noticeably improves the control performance in the low speeds of the PMSM

A cooperative multi-agent robotics system: design and modelling

This paper presents the development of the robotic multi-agent system SMART. In this system, the agent concept is applied to both hardware and software entities. Hardware agents are robots, with three and four legs, and an IP-camera that takes images of the scene where the cooperative task is carried out. Hardware agents strongly cooperate with software agents. These latter agents can be classified into image processing, communications, task management and decision making, planning and trajectory generation agents. To model, control and evaluate the performance of cooperative tasks among agents, a kind of PetriNet, called Work-Flow Petri Net, is used. Experimental results shows the good performance of the system

Robot Manipulators

Robot manipulators are developing more in the direction of industrial robots than of human workers. Recently, the applications of robot manipulators are spreading their focus, for example Da Vinci as a medical robot, ASIMO as a humanoid robot and so on. There are many research topics within the field of robot manipulators, e.g. motion planning, cooperation with a human, and fusion with external sensors like vision, haptic and force, etc. Moreover, these include both technical problems in the industry and theoretical problems in the academic fields. This book is a collection of papers presenting the latest research issues from around the world