Repetitive Control Meets Continuous Zero Phase Error Tracking Controller for Precise Tracking of B-spline Trajectories

In this paper, a novel repetitive control scheme is presented and discussed, based on the so-called B-spline filters. These dynamic filters are able to generate a B-spline trajectory if they are fed with the sequence of control points defining the curve. Therefore, they are ideal tools for generating online reference signals with the prescribed level of smoothness for driving dynamic systems, possibly together with a feedforward compensator. In particular, a Continuous Zero Phase Error Tracking Controller (ZPETC) can be used for tracking control of non-minimum phase systems but because of its open-loop nature it cannot guarantee the robustness with respect to modeling errors and exogenous disturbances. For this reason, ZPETC and trajectory generator have been embedded in a repetitive control scheme that allows to nullify interpolation errors even in non-ideal conditions, provided that the desired reference trajectory and the disturbances are periodic. Asymptotic stability of the overall control scheme is proved mathematically and experimental validation based on a non-minimum phase system is performed. Different models of the same physical system have been identified and used in the implementation of this model-based control scheme, allowing a real evaluation of the relationship between control system performance and model accuracy

Improving the Accuracy of Industrial Robots via Iterative Reference Trajectory Modification

In this paper, a novel repetitive control (RC) scheme is presented and discussed. The general framework is the control of repetitive tasks of robotic systems or, more in general, of automatic machines. The key idea of the proposed scheme consists in modifying the reference trajectory provided to the plant in order to compensate for external loads or unmodeled dynamics that cyclically affect it. By exploiting the fact that uniform B-spline trajectories can be generated by means of dynamic filters, the trajectory planning phase has been integrated within an RC scheme that is able to modify in real time the reference signal in order to nullify the tracking errors occurring at the desired via-points. Because of this mechanism, the control scheme is very suitable for the application to industrial plants with off-the-shelf, unmodifiable controllers. Experimental results obtained with a standard industrial manipulator both in joint space and in workspace show the effectiveness of the proposed method

Robot Trajectory Adaptation to Optimise the Trade-off between Human Cognitive Ergonomics and Workplace Productivity in Collaborative Tasks

In hybrid industrial environments, workers' comfort and positive perception of safety are essential requirements for successful acceptance and usage of collaborative robots. This paper proposes a novel human-robot interaction framework in which the robot behaviour is adapted online according to the operator's cognitive workload and stress. The method exploits the generation of B-spline trajectories in the joint space and formulation of a multi-objective optimisation problem to online adjust the total execution time and smoothness of the robot trajectories. The former ensures human efficiency and productivity of the workplace, while the latter contributes to safeguarding the user's comfort and cognitive ergonomics. The performance of the proposed framework was evaluated in a typical industrial task. Results demonstrated its capability to enhance the productivity of the human-robot dyad while mitigating the cognitive workload induced in the worker

Repetitive Control Systems: Stability and Periodic Tracking beyond the Linear Case

Periodic output regulation studies the problem of steering the output of a dynamical system along a periodic reference. This is a fundamental control problem which has a great interest from a practical point of view, since most industrial activities oriented to production are based on tasks with a cyclic nature. Nevertheless this interest extends rapidly to a theoretical framework once the problem is formalized. Mathematical tools coming from different fields can be used to provide an insight to the output regulation problem in different ways. An important control technique that is classically used to achieve periodic out- put regulation si called Repetitive Control (RC) and this thesis focuses on (but is not limited to) the development and the analysis with novel tools of RC schemes. Periodic output regulation for nonlinear dynamical systems is a challenging topic. This thesis, besides of providing consistent and practically useful results in the linear case, introduces promising tools dealing with the nonlinear periodic output regulation problem, whose solution is presented for particular classes of systems. The contribution of this research is mainly theoretical and relies on the use of mathematical tools like infinite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian systems and autonomous discrete-time systems to study stability and tracking properties in RC schemes and periodic regulation in general. Differently from the classical continuous-time formulation of RC, internal model arguments are not directly used is this work to study asymptotic tracking. In this way the linear case can be reinterpreted under a new light and novel strategies to consistently attack the nonlinear case are presented. Furthermore an application-oriented chapter with experimental results is present which describes the possibility of implementing a discrete-time RC scheme involving trajectory generation and non-minimum phase systems

Approximate minimum-time trajectories for 2-link flexible manipulators

Powell's nonlinear programming code, VF02AD, was used to generate approximate minimum-time tip trajectories for 2-link semi-rigid and flexible manipulator movements in the horizontal plane. The manipulator is modeled with an efficient finite-element scheme for an n-link, m-joint system with horizontal-plane bending only. Constraints on the trajectory include boundary conditions on position and energy for a rest-to-rest maneuver, straight-line tracking between boundary positions, and motor torque limits. Trajectory comparisons utilize a change in the link stiffness, EI, to transition from the semi-rigid to flexible case. Results show the level of compliance necessary to excite significant modal behavior. Quiescence of the final configuration is examined with the finite-element model

So you think you can track?

This work introduces a multi-camera tracking dataset consisting of 234 hours of video data recorded concurrently from 234 overlapping HD cameras covering a 4.2 mile stretch of 8-10 lane interstate highway near Nashville, TN. The video is recorded during a period of high traffic density with 500+ objects typically visible within the scene and typical object longevities of 3-15 minutes. GPS trajectories from 270 vehicle passes through the scene are manually corrected in the video data to provide a set of ground-truth trajectories for recall-oriented tracking metrics, and object detections are provided for each camera in the scene (159 million total before cross-camera fusion). Initial benchmarking of tracking-by-detection algorithms is performed against the GPS trajectories, and a best HOTA of only 9.5% is obtained (best recall 75.9% at IOU 0.1, 47.9 average IDs per ground truth object), indicating the benchmarked trackers do not perform sufficiently well at the long temporal and spatial durations required for traffic scene understanding

Application of Jerk Analysis to a Repetitive Lifting Task in Patients with Chronic Lower Back Pain

Patients with chronic lower back pain (CLBP) typically demonstrate different biomechanics than healthy controls during a lifting task. Motion differences in a repetitive lifting task have been described previously using differences in the timing of body angles changes during the lift. These timing changes rely on small differences of motion and are difficult to measure and to interpret. The purpose of this study is to evaluate shoulder jerk (rate of change of acceleration) in a repetitive lifting task as a parameter to detect differences of motion between controls and CLBP patients and to measure the impact of a rehabilitation program on jerk. The jerk calculation proved to be a noisy measure since jerk is the third derivative of position, and a simulation study was performed to evaluate smoothing methods to provide the best estimates of the third derivative. Woltring's generalized cross-validation spline produced the best estimates and was fit to subject data. Derivatives were calculated using differentiation of the spline coefficients, and root-means-square (rms) amplitude of jerk was used for comparison. Lifts were divided into phases of early, middle or late based on the number of repetitions completed by the subject. Average values of rms jerk during a lift were computed at each of the task phases. Significant group differences were found for rms jerk. CLBP patients were found to perform lifts with lower jerk values than controls and as the task progressed, rms jerk increased for both groups. A group-by-phase interaction was significant. After completion of a rehabilitation program, CLBP patients performed lifts with greater rms jerk. In general, patients performed lifts with lower jerk values than controls, suggesting that pain impacts lifting style