Control of floating robots using attractor dynamics

To enable floating robots to autonomously reach for a target position while avoiding obstacles we have generalized the attractor dynamics approach established for wheeled mobile robots to motion generation in blimps or lighter-than-air vehicles. In this approach the level of modelling is at the level of behaviours. A “dynamics'' of behaviour is defined over a state space of behavioural variables (heading direction, forward velocity and altitude). The environment is also modelled in these terms by representing task constraints as attractors (i.e. asymptotically stable states) or reppelers (i.e. unstable states) of behavioural dynamics. Attractors and repellers are combined into a vector field that governs the blimp’s behaviour. The resulting dynamical systems that generate the flying behaviour is non-linear and presents several attractors and reppelers (typically few) . By design the dynamic systems are tuned so that the behavioural variables are always very close to one attractor. Thus the motion of the airship is controlled by a time series of asymptotically stable states. Computer simulations that integrate the dynamic control architecture and the blimp’s physical model indicate that if parameter values are chosen within reasonable ranges, then the over all system works quite well even in cluttered environments. The stability properties of the dynamic control architecture enable the floating robot to remain robust against perturbations

Methodologies definition and validation for the longitudinal dynamic identification of an unmanned robotic airshi

Orientadores: Paulo Augusto Valente Ferreira, Ely Carneiro de PaivaDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Nos últimos anos tem-se observado um crescente interesse de empresas e instituições de pesquisa pelo desenvolvimento de veículos robóticos, dotados de diferentes níveis de capacidade de operação autônoma, objetivando a execução de diversas tarefas. Dentro deste contexto o CenPRA, Centro de Pesquisas Renato Archer, propôs o Projeto AURORA. O Projeto AURORA (Autonomous Unmanned Remote mOnitoring Robotic Airship) tem como seu principal objetivo o desenvolvimento de protótipos de veículos aéreos tele-operados, e a obtenção de veículos telemonitorados, através do desenvolvimento de sistemas com graus de autonomia crescentes. Para que se possam agregar níveis crescentes de autonomia ao veículo, é essencial incrementar seu sistema de controle e navegação de maneira gradativa. Por esse motivo o aprimoramento das estratégias de controle do sistema é essencial. Assim, é primordial possuir um modelo fidedigno do sistema físico em questão, pois somente dessa forma é possível elaborar leis de controle e testá-las imediatamente em simulação antes de partir para os ensaios práticos no veículo real. Além disso, um modelo adequado é essencial para a simulação do vôo do dirigível de forma a permitir a análise preliminar de seu comportamento diante de uma nova missão. O principal objetivo deste trabalho é a implementação e validação de metodologias para a identificação do modelo dinâmico longitudinal do dirigível. Foram abordadas três metodologias para a identificação do modelo dinâmico do dirigível: a identificação estacionária, que identifica os coeficientes aerodinâmicos do dirigível a partir de um vôo estacionário, a identificação dinâmica, que identifica esses coeficientes e a dinâmica linearizada do veículo a partir de um vôo com entradas de perturbação conhecidas e, finalmente, a identificação por meio de estratégias evolutivas, que procura otimizar alguns parâmetros do modelo dinâmico. As três metodologias foram testadas, validadas e comparadas através de ensaios de simulação, utilizando-se o simulador do dirigível AS800 do Projeto AURORAAbstract: In recent years many research institutions and companies have been demonstrating a growing interest in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles with different autonomous operation levels in order to allow for the performance of many types of tasks. Within this context, CenPRA (Renato Archer Research Center) proposed the Project AURORA. Project AURORA (Autonomous Unmanned Remote Monitoring Robotic Airship) aims at the development of unmanned airships remotely operated with a view to the creation of an autonomous flight airship by the incorporation of increasing levels of autonomy. In order to increase the vehicle autonomy level, the development of a proportionally enhanced control and navigation systems is essential. It is extremely important to have a very accurate model of the physical airship system, given that this is the only way to design control laws for the vehicle and test them in simulation before performing actual flight tests. Moreover, an accurate model is essential to predict the vehicle behavior in simulation before any real flight demanding a new type of mission. The definition of identification methodologies for the AS800 airship system identification is the main scope of this work. Three methodologies were considered to allow the airship dynamic model identification: stationary identification, which identifies aerodynamic coefficients from stationary stabilized flight conditions; dynamic identification, which identifies these coefficients and the vehicle linear dynamics from the application of known inputs into the system; and, finally, through evolution strategies, which uses an evolutionary approach for the optimization of the aerodynamic coefficients of the dynamic model. All the methodologies were tested, validated and compared through simulation experiments by using the AS800 airship simulator of the Project AURORAMestradoAutomaçãoMestre em Engenharia Elétric

Optimal trajectory generation with DMOC versus NTG : application to an underwater glider and a JPL aerobot.

Optimal trajectory generation is an essential part for robotic explorers to execute the total exploration of deep oceans or outer space planets while curiosity of human and technology advancements of society both require robots to search for unknown territories efficiently and safely. As one of state-of-the-art optimal trajectory generation methodologies, Nonlinear Trajectory Generation (NTG) combines with B-spline, nonlinear programming, differential flatness technique to generate optimal trajectories for modelled mechanical systems. While Discrete Mechanics and Optimal Control (DMOC) is a newly proposed optimal control method for mechanical systems, it is based on direct discretization of Lagrange-d\u27Alembert principle. In this dissertation, NTG is utilized to generate trajectories for an underwater glider with a 3D B-spline ocean current model. The optimal trajectories are corresponding well with the Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCS). Then NTG is utilized to generate 3D opportunistic trajectories for a JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Aerobot by taking advantage of wind velocity. Since both DMOC and NTG are methods which can generate optimal trajectories for mechanical systems, their differences in theory and application are investigated. In a simple ocean current example and a more complex ocean current model, DMOC with discrete Euler-Lagrange constraints generates local optimal solutions with different initial guesses while NTG is also generating similar solutions with more computation time and comparable energy consumption. DMOC is much easier to implement than NTG because in order to generate good solutions in NTG, its variables need to be correctly defined as B-spline variables with rightly-chosen orders. Finally, the MARIT (Multiple Air Robotics Indoor Testbed) is established with a Vicon 8i motion capture system. Six Mcam 2 cameras connected with a datastation are able to track real-time coordinates of a draganflyer helicopter. This motion capture system establishes a good foundation for future NTG and DMOC algorithms verifications

Energy Based Control System Designs for Underactuated Robot Fish Propulsion

In nature through millions of years of evolution fish and cetaceans have developed fast efficient and highly manoeuvrable methods of marine propulsion. A recent explosion in demand for sub sea robotics, for conducting tasks such as sub sea exploration and survey has left developers desiring to capture some of the novel mechanisms evolved by fish and cetaceans to increase the efficiency of speed and manoeuvrability of sub sea robots. Research has revealed that interactions with vortices and other unsteady fluid effects play a significant role in the efficiency of fish and cetaceans. However attempts to duplicate this with robotic fish have been limited by the difficulty of predicting or sensing such uncertain fluid effects. This study aims to develop a gait generation method for a robotic fish with a degree of passivity which could allow the body to dynamically interact with and potentially synchronise with vortices within the flow without the need to actually sense them. In this study this is achieved through the development of a novel energy based gait generation tactic, where the gait of the robotic fish is determined through regulation of the state energy rather than absolute state position. Rather than treating fluid interactions as undesirable disturbances and `fighting' them to maintain a rigid geometric defined gait, energy based control allows the disturbances to the system generated by vortices in the surrounding flow to contribute to the energy of the system and hence the dynamic motion. Three different energy controllers are presented within this thesis, a deadbeat energy controller equivalent to an analytically optimised model predictive controller, a $H_\infty$ disturbance rejecting controller with a novel gradient decent optimisation and finally a error feedback controller with a novel alternative error metric. The controllers were tested on a robotic fish simulation platform developed within this project. The simulation platform consisted of the solution of a series of ordinary differential equations for solid body dynamics coupled with a finite element incompressible fluid dynamic simulation of the surrounding flow. results demonstrated the effectiveness of the energy based control approach and illustrate the importance of choice of controller in performance

What do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About Human-Robot Interaction?

This is a collection of papers presented at the workshop What Do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About HRI , held at the 2010 Human-Robot Interaction Conference, in Osaka, Japan

UAV based group coordination of UGVs

Coordination of autonomous mobile robots has received significant attention during the last two decades with the emergence of small, lightweight and low power embedded systems. Coordinated motion of heterogenous robots is important due to the fact that unique advantages of di erent robots might be combined to increase the overall task efficiency of the system. In this thesis, a new coordination framework is developed for a heterogeneous robot system, composed of multiple Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), that operates in an environment where individual robots work collaboratively in order to accomplish a predefined goal. UAV, a quadrotor, detects the target in the environment and provides a feasible trajectory from an initial configuration to a final target location. UGVs, a group of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots, follow a virtual leader which is created as the projection of UAV's 3D position onto the horizontal plane. The UAV broadcasts its position at certain frequency to all UGVs. Two different coordination models are developed. In the dynamic coordination model, reference trajectories for each robot is generated from the motion of nodal masses located at each UGV and connected by virtual springs and dampers. Springs have adaptable parameters that allow the desired formation to be achieved In the kinematic coordination model, the position of the virtual leader and distances from the two closest neighbors are directly utilized to create linear and angular velocity references for each UGV. Several coordinated tasks are presented and the results are verified by simulations where different number of UGVs are employed and certain amount of communication delays between the vehicles are also considered. Simulation results are quite promising and form a basis for future experimental work on the topic