Flexible shape memory alloy actuators for soft robotics: Modelling and control

One of the limitations in the development of really soft robotic devices is the development of soft actuators. In recent years, our research group has developed a new flexible shape memory alloy actuator that provides more freedom of movements and a better integration in wearable robots, especially in soft wearable robots. Shape memory alloy wires present characteristics such as force/weight ratio, low weight, and noiseless actuation, which make them an ideal choice in these types of applications. However, the control strategy must take into account its complex dynamics due to thermal phase transformation. Different control approaches based on complex non-linear models and other model-free control methods have been tested on real systems. Some exoskeleton prototypes have been developed, which demonstrate the utility of this actuator and the advantages offered by these flexible actuators to improve the comfort and adaptability of exoskeletons

The design, hysteresis modeling and control of a novel SMA-fishing-line actuator

Fishing line can be combined with shape memory alloy (SMA) to form novel artificial muscle actuators which have low cost, are lightweight and soft. They can be applied in bionic, wearable and rehabilitation robots, and can reduce system weight and cost, increase power-to-weight ratio and offer safer physical human-robot interaction. However, these actuators possess several disadvantages, for example fishing line based actuators possess low strength and are complex to drive, and SMA possesses a low percentage contraction and has high hysteresis. This paper presents a novel artificial actuator (known as an SMA-fishing-line) made of fishing line and SMA twisted then coiled together, which can be driven directly by an electrical voltage. Its output force can reach 2.65N at 7.4V drive voltage, and the percentage contraction at 4V driven voltage with a 3N load is 7.53%. An antagonistic bionic joint driven by the novel SMA-fishing-line actuators is presented, and based on an extended unparallel Prandtl-Ishlinskii (EUPI) model, its hysteresis behavior is established, and the error ratio of the EUPI model is determined to be 6.3%. A Joule heat model of the SMA-fishing-line is also presented, and the maximum error of the established model is 0.510mm. Based on this accurate hysteresis model, a composite PID controller consisting of PID and an integral inverse (I-I) compensator is proposed and its performance is compared with a traditional PID controller through simulations and experimentation. These results show that the composite PID controller possesses higher control precision than basic PID, and is feasible for implementation in an SMA-fishing-line driven antagonistic bionic joint

Topics in Machining with Industrial Robots and Optimal Control of Vehicles

Two main topics are considered in this thesis: Machining with industrial robots and optimal control of road-vehicles in critical maneuvers. The motivation for research on the first subject is the need for flexible and accurate production processes employing industrial robots as their main component. The challenge to overcome here is to achieve high-accuracy machining solutions, in spite of strong process forces affecting the robot end-effector. Because of the process forces, the nonlinear dynamics of the manipulator, such as the joint compliance and backlash, significantly degrade the achieved position accuracy of the machined part. In this thesis, a macro/micro manipulator configuration is considered to the purpose of increasing the position accuracy. In particular, a model-based control architecture is developed for control of the micro manipulator. The macro/micro manipulator configuration are validated by experimental results from milling tests in aluminium. The main result is that the proposed actuator configuration, combined with the control architecture proposed in this thesis, can be used for increasing the accuracy of industrial machining processes with robots. The interest for research on optimal control of road-vehicles in timecritical maneuvers is mainly driven by the desire to devise improved vehicle safety systems. Primarily, the solution of an optimal control problem for a specific cost function and model configuration can provide indication of performance limits as well as inspiration for control strategies in time-critical maneuvering situations. In this thesis, a methodology for solving this kind of problems is discussed. More specifically, vehicle and tire modeling and the optimization formulation required to get useful solutions to these problems are investigated. Simulation results are presented for different vehicle models, under varying road-surface conditions, in aggressive maneuvers, where in particular the tires are performing at their limits. The obtained results are evaluated and compared. The main conclusion here is that even simplified road-vehicle models are able to replicate behavior observed when experienced drivers are handling vehicles in time-critical maneuvers. Hence, it is plausible that the results presented in this thesis provide a basis for development of future optimization-based driver assistance technologies

Motion Control of Smart Material Based Actuators: Modeling, Controller Design and Experimental Evaluation

Smart material based actuators, such as piezoelectric, magnetostrictive, and shape memory alloy actuators, are known to exhibit hysteresis effects. When the smart actuators are preceded with plants, such non-smooth nonlinearities usually lead to poor tracking performance, undesired oscillation, or even potential instability in the control systems. The development of control strategies to control the plants preceded with hysteresis actuators has become to an important research topic and imposed a great challenge in the control society. In order to mitigate the hysteresis effects, the most popular approach is to construct the inverse to compensate such effects. In such a case, the mathematical descriptions are generally required. In the literature, several mathematical hysteresis models have been proposed. The most popular hysteresis models perhaps are Preisach model, Prandtl-Ishlinskii model, and Bouc-Wen model. Among the above mentioned models, the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model has an unique property, i.e., the inverse Prandtl-Ishlinskii model can be analytically obtained, which can be used as a feedforward compensator to mitigate the hysteresis effect in the control systems. However, the shortcoming of the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is also obvious because it can only describe a certain class of hysteresis shapes. Comparing to the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model, a generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model has been reported in the literature to describe a more general class of hysteresis shapes in the smart actuators. However, the inverse for the generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model has only been given without the strict proof due to the difficulty of the initial loading curve construction though the analytic inverse of the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is well documented in the literature. Therefore, as a further development, the generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is re-defined and a modified generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is proposed in this dissertation which can still describe similar general class of hysteresis shapes. The benefit is that the concept of initial loading curve can be utilized and a strict analytical inverse model can be derived for the purpose of compensation. The effectiveness of the obtained inverse modified generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model has been validated in the both simulations and in experiments on a piezoelectric micropositioning stage. It is also affirmed that the proposed modified generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model fulfills two crucial properties for the operator based hysteresis models, the wiping out property and the congruency property. Usually the hysteresis nonlinearities in smart actuators are unknown, the direct open-loop feedforward inverse compensation will introduce notably inverse compensation error with an estimated inverse construction. A closed-loop adaptive controller is therefore required. The challenge in fusing the inverse compensation and the robust adaptive control is that the strict stability proof of the closed loop control system is difficult to obtain due to the fact that an error expression of the inverse compensation has not been established when the hysteresis is unknown. In this dissertation research, by developing the error expression of the inverse compensation for modified generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model, two types of inverse based robust adaptive controllers are designed for a class of uncertain systems preceded by a smart material based actuator with hysteresis nonlinearities. When the system states are available, an inverse based adaptive variable structure control approach is designed. The strict stability proof is established thereafter. Comparing with other works in the literature, the benefit for such a design is that the proposed inverse based scheme can achieve the tracking without necessarily adapting the uncertain parameters (the number could be large) in the hysteresis model, which leads to the computational efficiency. Furthermore, an inverse based adaptive output-feedback control scheme is developed when the exactly knowledge of most of the states is unavailable and the only accessible state is the output of the system. An observer is therefore constructed to estimate the unavailable states from the measurements of a single output. By taking consideration of the analytical expression of the inverse compensation error, the global stability of the close-loop control system as well as the required tracking accuracy are achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed output-feedback controller is validated in both simulations and experiments

Generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii hysteresis model and its analytical inverse for compensation of hysteresis in smart actuators

Smart actuators such as piezoceramics, magnetostrictive and shape memory alloy actuators, invariably, exhibit hysteresis, which has been associated with oscillations in the open-loop system's responses, and poor tracking performance and potential instabilities of the close-loop system. A number of phenomological operator-based hysteresis models such as the Preisach model, Krasnosel'skii-Pokrovskii model and Prandtl-Ishlinskii model, have been formulated to describe the hysteresis nonlinearities and to seek compensation of the hysteresis effects. Among these, the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model offers greater flexibility and unique property that its inverse can be attained analytically. The Prandtl-Ishlinskii model, however, is limited to rate-independent and symmetric hysteresis nonlinearities. In this dissertation research, the unique flexibility of the Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is explored for describing the symmetric as well as nonlinear hysteresis and output saturation properties of smart actuators, and for deriving an analytical inverse for effective compensation. A generalized play operator with dissimilar envelope functions is proposed to describe asymmetric hysteresis and output saturation nonlinearities of different smart actuators, when applied in conjunction with the classical Prandtl-Ishlinskii model. Dynamic density and dynamic threshold functions of time rate of the input are further proposed and integrated in the classical model to describe rate-dependent symmetric and asymmetric hysteresis properties of smart actuators. A fundamental relationship between the thresholds of the classical and the resulting generalized models is also formulated to facilitate parameters identification. The validity of the resulting generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii models is demonstrated using the laboratory-measured data for piezoceramic, magnetostrictive and SMA actuators under different inputs over a broad range of frequencies. The results suggest that the proposed generalized models can effectively characterize the rate-dependent as well as rate-independent hysteresis properties of a broad class of smart actuators with output saturation. The properties of the proposed generalized models are subsequently explored to derive its inverse to seek an effective compensator for the asymmetric as well as rate-dependent hysteresis effects. The resulting inverse is applied as a feedforward compensator and simulation results are obtained to demonstrate its effectiveness in compensating the symmetric as well as asymmetric hysteresis of different smart actuators. The effectiveness of the proposed analytical inverse model-based real-time compensator is further demonstrated through its implementation in the laboratory for a piezoceramic actuator. Considering that the generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii model provides an estimate of the hysteresis properties and the analytical inverse is a hysteresis model, the output of the inverse compensation is expected to yield hysteresis, although of a considerably lower magnitude. The expected compensation error, attributed to possible errors in hysteresis characterization, is analytically derived on the basis of the generalized model and its inverse. The design of a robust controller is presented for a system preceded by the hysteresis effects of an actuator using the proposed error model. The primary purpose is to fuse the analytical inverse compensation error model with an adaptive controller to achieve to enhance tracking precision. The global stability of the chosen control law and the entire closed-loop system is also analytically established. The results demonstrated significantly enhanced tracking performance, when the inverse of the estimated Prandtl-Ishlinskii model is considered in the closed-loop control system

Design, Fabrication, Modeling and Control of Artificial Muscle Actuated Wrist Joint System

This research dissertation presents the design, fabrication, modeling and control of an artificial muscle (AM) actuated wrist joint system, i.e., a thermoelectric (TEM) antagonistically driven shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator, to mimic the muscle behavior of human beings. In the developed AM based wrist joint system, the SMA, exhibiting contraction and relaxation corresponding to its temperature, is utilized as the actuator in the AM. Similar to the nerve stimulation, TEM is introduced to provide heat stimulation to the SMA, which involves heating and cooling of the SMA. SMA possesses superelastic behavior that provides a large force over its weight and effective strain in practical applications. However, such superior material has been underutilized due to its high nonlinear hysteresis behavior, strongly affected by the loading stress. Using the data obtained from the experiments, based on the Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) model, a Stress-Dependent Generalized Prandtl-Ishlinskii (SD-GPI) model is proposed, which can describe the hysteresis behavior of the SMA under the influence of various stresses. The parameters of the SD-GPI models at various stresses are obtained using a fitting function from the Matlab. The simulation results of the SD-GPI showed that prediction error is achieved at mean values of ±2% and a standard deviation of less than 7%. Meanwhile, the TEM model is also developed based on the heat balance theory. The model parameters are identified via experimental data using Range-Kutta fourth order integration equation and Matlab curve fitting function. The TEM model has shown a satisfactory temperature prediction. Then, by combining the obtained two models, an integrated model is developed to describe the whole dynamics of the wrist joint system. To control the SMA actuated wrist system, the SD-GPI inverse hysteresis compensator is developed to mitigate the hysteresis effect. However, such a compensator shows errors in compensating the hysteresis effect. Therefore, the inverse hysteresis compensator error and the system tracking error are analyzed, and the adaptive back-stepping based control approach is adopted to develop the inverse based adaptive control for the antagonistic AM wrist joint. Subsequently, a corresponding control law is developed for the TEM system to generate the required temperature obtained from the adaptive controller. Simulations verified the developed approach. Finally, experiments are conducted to verify the proposed system. Input sinusoidal signal with frequency 0.1rad/s and amplitude of ±0.524rad (±30°) is applied to the wrist joint system. Experimental results verified that the TEMs antagonistically driven SMA actuators for artificial muscle resembling wrist joint has been successfully achieved

オペレータリロンニモトヅクアツデンアクチュエータヲモチイタヘイバンコウゾウブツノヒセンケイシンドウセイギョニカンスルケンキュウ

博士（学術）東京農工大

Nanopositionnement 3D à base de mesure à courant tunnel et piezo-actionnement

The objective of this thesis was to elaborate high performance control strategies and their real-time validation on a tunneling current-based 3D nanopositioning system developed in GIPSA-lab. The thesis lies in the domain of micro-/nano mechatronic systems (MEMS) focused on applications of fast and precise positioning and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). More precisely, the aim is to position the metallic tunneling tip (like in STM) over the metallic surface using piezoelectric actuators in X, Y and Z directions and actuated micro-cantilever (like in Atomic Force Microscope AFM), electrostatically driven in Z direction, with high precision, over possibly high bandwidth. However, the presence of different adverse effects appearing at such small scale (e.g. measurement noise, nonlinearities of different nature, cross-couplings, vibrations) strongly affect the overall performance of the 3D system. Therefore a high performance control is needed. To that end, a novel 3D model of the system has been developed and appropriate control methods for such a system have been elaborated. First the focus is on horizontal X and Y directions. The nonlinear hysteresis and creep effects exhibited by piezoelectric actuators have been compensated and a comparison between different compensation methods is provided. Modern SISO and MIMO robust control methods are next used to reduce high frequency effects of piezo vibration and cross-couplings between X and Y axes. Next, the horizontal motion is combined with the vertical one (Z axis) with tunneling current and micro-cantilever control. Illustrative experimental results for 3D nanopositioning of tunneling tip, as well as simulation results for surface topography reconstruction and multi-mode cantilever positioning, are finally given.L'objectif de la thèse est l'élaboration de lois de commande de haute performance et leur validation en temps réel sur une plateforme expérimentale 3D de nano-positionnement à base de courant à effet tunnel, développée au laboratoire GIPSA-lab. Elle s'inscrit donc dans le cadre des systèmes micro-/nano-mécatronique (MEMS), et de la commande. Plus précisément, le principal enjeu considéré est de positionner la pointe métallique à effet tunnel (comme en microscopie à effet tunnel STM) contre la surface métallique en utilisant des actionneurs piézoélectriques en X, Y et Z et un micro-levier (comme en microscopie à force atomique AFM) actionné électrostatiquement en Z avec une grande précision et une bande passante élevée. Cependant, la présence de différents effets indésirables apparaissant à cette petite échelle (comme le bruit de mesure, des non-linéarités de natures différentes, les couplages, les vibrations) affectent fortement la performance globale du système 3D. En conséquence, une commande de haute performance est nécessaire. Pour cela, un nouveau modèle 3D du système a été développé et des méthodes de contrôle appropriées pour un tel système ont été élaborées. Tout d'abord l'accent est mis sur de positionnement selon les axes X et Y. Les effets d'hystérésis et de fluage non linéaires présents dans les actionneurs piézoélectriques ont été compensés et une comparaison entre les différentes méthodes de compensation est effectuée. Des techniques modernes de commande robuste SISO et MIMO sont ensuite utilisées pour réduire les effets des vibrations piézoélectriques et des couplages entre les axes X et Y. Le mouvement horizontal est alors combiné avec le mouvement vertical (Axe Z) et une commande du courant tunnel et du micro-levier. Des résultats expérimentaux illustrent le nano positionnement 3D de la pointe, et des résultats de simulation pour la reconstruction de la topographie de la surface ainsi que le positionnement du micro-levier à base d'un modèle multi-modes