Force control of lightweight series elastic systems using enhanced disturbance observers

This paper analyzes the control challenges associated to lightweight series elastic systems in force control applications, showing that a low end-point inertia can lead to high sensitivity to environment uncertainties. Where mainstream force control methods fail, this paper proposes a control methodology to enhance the performance robustness of existing disturbance observers (DOBs). The approach is validated experimentally and successfully compared to basic control solutions and state of the art DOB approaches

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

Modeling and parametric optimization of 3D tendon-sheath actuator system for upper limb soft exosuit

This paper presents an analysis of parametric characterization of a motor driven tendon-sheath actuator system for use in upper limb augmentation for applications such as rehabilitation, therapy, and industrial automation. The double tendon sheath system, which uses two sets of cables (agonist and antagonist side) guided through a sheath, is considered to produce smooth and natural-looking movements of the arm. The exoskeleton is equipped with a single motor capable of controlling both the flexion and extension motions. One of the key challenges in the implementation of a double tendon sheath system is the possibility of slack in the tendon, which can impact the overall performance of the system. To address this issue, a robust mathematical model is developed and a comprehensive parametric study is carried out to determine the most effective strategies for overcoming the problem of slack and improving the transmission. The study suggests that incorporating a series spring into the system's tendon leads to a universally applicable design, eliminating the need for individual customization. The results also show that the slack in the tendon can be effectively controlled by changing the pretension, spring constant, and size and geometry of spool mounted on the axle of motor

Design and Control of Robotic Systems for Lower Limb Stroke Rehabilitation

Lower extremity stroke rehabilitation exhausts considerable health care resources, is labor intensive, and provides mostly qualitative metrics of patient recovery. To overcome these issues, robots can assist patients in physically manipulating their affected limb and measure the output motion. The robots that have been currently designed, however, provide assistance over a limited set of training motions, are not portable for in-home and in-clinic use, have high cost and may not provide sufficient safety or performance. This thesis proposes the idea of incorporating a mobile drive base into lower extremity rehabilitation robots to create a portable, inherently safe system that provides assistance over a wide range of training motions. A set of rehabilitative motion tasks were established and a six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) motion and force-sensing system was designed to meet high-power, large workspace, and affordability requirements. An admittance controller was implemented, and the feasibility of using this portable, low-cost system for movement assistance was shown through tests on a healthy individual. An improved version of the robot was then developed that added torque sensing and known joint elasticity for use in future clinical testing with a flexible-joint impedance controller

Robotics-Assisted Needle Steering for Percutaneous Interventions: Modeling and Experiments

Needle insertion and guidance plays an important role in medical procedures such as brachytherapy and biopsy. Flexible needles have the potential to facilitate precise targeting and avoid collisions during medical interventions while reducing trauma to the patient and post-puncture issues. Nevertheless, error introduced during guidance degrades the effectiveness of the planned therapy or diagnosis. Although steering using flexible bevel-tip needles provides great mobility and dexterity, a major barrier is the complexity of needle-tissue interaction that does not lend itself to intuitive control. To overcome this problem, a robotic system can be employed to perform trajectory planning and tracking by manipulation of the needle base. This research project focuses on a control-theoretic approach and draws on the rich literature from control and systems theory to model needle-tissue interaction and needle flexion and then design a robotics-based strategy for needle insertion/steering. The resulting solutions will directly benefit a wide range of needle-based interventions. The outcome of this computer-assisted approach will not only enable us to perform efficient preoperative trajectory planning, but will also provide more insight into needle-tissue interaction that will be helpful in developing advanced intraoperative algorithms for needle steering. Experimental validation of the proposed methodologies was carried out on a state of-the-art 5-DOF robotic system designed and constructed in-house primarily for prostate brachytherapy. The system is equipped with a Nano43 6-DOF force/torque sensor (ATI Industrial Automation) to measure forces and torques acting on the needle shaft. In our setup, an Aurora electromagnetic tracker (Northern Digital Inc.) is the sensing device used for measuring needle deflection. A multi-threaded application for control, sensor readings, data logging and communication over the ethernet was developed using Microsoft Visual C 2005, MATLAB 2007 and the QuaRC Toolbox (Quanser Inc.). Various artificial phantoms were developed so as to create a realistic medium in terms of elasticity and insertion force ranges; however, they simulated a uniform environment without exhibiting complexities of organic tissues. Experiments were also conducted on beef liver and fresh chicken breast, beef, and ham, to investigate the behavior of a variety biological tissues

Direct torque control for cable conduit mechanisms for the robotic foot for footwear testing

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd As the shoe durability is affected directly by the dynamic force/pressure between the shoe and its working environments (i.e., the contact ground and the human foot), a footwear testing system should replicate correctly this interaction force profile during gait cycles. Thus, in developing a robotic foot for footwear testing, it is important to power multiple foot joints and to control their output torque to produce correct dynamic effects on footwear. The cable conduit mechanism (CCM) offers great advantages for designing this robotic foot. It not only eliminates the cumbersome actuators and significant inertial effects from the fast-moving robotic foot but also allows a large amount of energy/force to be transmitted/propagated to the compact robotic foot. However, CCMs cause nonlinearities and hysteresis effects to the system performance. Recent studies on CCMs and hysteresis systems mostly addressed the position control. This paper introduces a new approach for modelling the torque transmission and controlling the output torque of a pair of CCMs, which are used to actuate the robotic foot for footwear testing. The proximal torque is used as the input signal for the Bouc–Wen hysteresis model to portray the torque transmission profile while a new robust adaptive control scheme is developed to online estimate and compensate for the nonlinearities and hysteresis effects. Both theoretical proof of stability and experimental validation of the new torque controller have been carried out and reported in this paper. Control experiments of other closed-loop control algorithms have been also conducted to compare their performance with the new controller effectiveness. Qualitative and quantitative results show that the new control approach significantly enhances the torque tracking performance for the system preceded by CCMs

Control techniques for mechatronic assisted surgery

The treatment response for traumatic head injured patients can be improved by using an autonomous robotic system to perform basic, time-critical emergency neurosurgery, reducing costs and saving lives. In this thesis, a concept for a neurosurgical robotic system is proposed to perform three specific emergency neurosurgical procedures; they are the placement of an intracranial pressure monitor, external ventricular drainage, and the evacuation of chronic subdural haematoma. The control methods for this system are investigated following a curiosity led approach. Individual problems are interpreted in the widest sense and solutions posed that are general in nature. Three main contributions result from this approach: 1) a clinical evidence based review of surgical robotics and a methodology to assist in their evaluation, 2) a new controller for soft-grasping of objects, and 3) new propositions and theorems for chatter suppression sliding mode controllers. These contributions directly assist in the design of the control system of the neurosurgical robot and, more broadly, impact other areas outside the narrow con nes of the target application. A methodology for applied research in surgical robotics is proposed. The methodology sets out a hierarchy of criteria consisting of three tiers, with the most important being the bottom tier and the least being the top tier. It is argued that a robotic system must adhere to these criteria in order to achieve acceptability. Recent commercial systems are reviewed against these criteria, and are found to conform up to at least the bottom and intermediate tiers. However, the lack of conformity to the criteria in the top tier, combined with the inability to conclusively prove increased clinical benefit, particularly symptomatic benefit, is shown to be hampering the potential of surgical robotics in gaining wide establishment. A control scheme for soft-grasping objects is presented. Grasping a soft or fragile object requires the use of minimum contact force to prevent damage or deformation. Without precise knowledge of object parameters, real-time feedback control must be used to regulate the contact force and prevent slip. Moreover, the controller must be designed to have good performance characteristics to rapidly modulate the fingertip contact force in response to a slip event. A fuzzy sliding mode controller combined with a disturbance observer is proposed for contact force control and slip prevention. The robustness of the controller is evaluated through both simulation and experiment. The control scheme was found to be effective and robust to parameter uncertainty. When tested on a real system, however, chattering phenomena, well known to sliding mode research, was induced by the unmodelled suboptimal components of the system (filtering, backlash, and time delays). This reduced the controller performance. The problem of chattering and potential solutions are explored. Real systems using sliding mode controllers, such as the control scheme for soft-grasping, have a tendency to chatter at high frequencies. This is caused by the sliding mode controller interacting with un-modelled parasitic dynamics at the actuator-input and sensor-output of the plant. As a result, new chatter-suppression sliding mode controllers have been developed, which introduce new parameters into the system. However, the effect any particular choice of parameters has on system performance is unclear, and this can make tuning the parameters to meet a set of performance criteria di cult. In this thesis, common chatter-suppression sliding mode control strategies are surveyed and simple design and estimation methods are proposed. The estimation methods predict convergence, chattering amplitude, settling time, and maximum output bounds (overshoot) using harmonic linearizations and invariant ellipsoid sets