Visual servoing of aerial manipulators

The final publication is available at link.springer.comThis chapter describes the classical techniques to control an aerial manipulator by means of visual information and presents an uncalibrated image-based visual servo method to drive the aerial vehicle. The proposed technique has the advantage that it contains mild assumptions about the principal point and skew values of the camera, and it does not require prior knowledge of the focal length, in contrast to traditional image-based approaches.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Cooperative Material Handling by Human and Robotic Agents:Module Development and System Synthesis

In this paper we present the results of a collaborative effort to design and implement a system for cooperative material handling by a small team of human and robotic agents in an unstructured indoor environment. Our approach makes fundamental use of human agents\u27 expertise for aspects of task planning, task monitoring, and error recovery. Our system is neither fully autonomous nor fully teleoperated. It is designed to make effective use of human abilities within the present state of the art of autonomous systems. It is designed to allow for and promote cooperative interaction between distributed agents with various capabilities and resources. Our robotic agents refer to systems which are each equipped with at least one sensing modality and which possess some capability for self-orientation and/or mobility. Our robotic agents are not required to be homogeneous with respect to either capabilities or function. Our research stresses both paradigms and testbed experimentation. Theory issues include the requisite coordination principles and techniques which are fundamental to the basic functioning of such a cooperative multi-agent system. We have constructed a testbed facility for experimenting with distributed multi-agent architectures. The required modular components of this testbed are currently operational and have been tested individually. Our current research focuses on the integration of agents in a scenario for cooperative material handling

Robotic Manipulator Control in the Presence of Uncertainty

openThis research focuses on the problem of manipulator control in the presence of uncertainty and aims to compare different approaches for handling uncertainty while developing robust and adaptive methods that can control the robot without explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. Uncertainty is a pervasive challenge in robotics, arising from various sources such as sensor noise, modeling errors, and external disturbances. Effectively addressing uncertainty is crucial for achieving accurate and reliable manipulator control. The research will explore and compare existing methods for uncertainty handling such as robust feedback linearization , sliding mode control and robust adaptive control. These methods provide mechanisms to model and compensate for uncertainty in the control system. Additionally, modified robust and adaptive control methods will be developed that can dynamically adjust control laws based on the observed states, without requiring explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. To evaluate the performance of the different approaches, comprehensive experiments will be conducted on a manipulator platform. Various manipulation tasks will be performed under different levels of uncertainty, and the performance of each control approach will be assessed in terms of accuracy, stability, and adaptability. Comparative analysis will be conducted to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each method and identify the most effective approach for handling uncertainty in manipulator control. The outcomes of this research will contribute to the advancement of manipulator control by providing insights into the effectiveness of different approaches for uncertainty handling. The development of new robust and adaptive control methods will enable manipulators to operate in uncertain environments without requiring explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. Ultimately, this research will facilitate the deployment of more reliable and adaptive robotic systems capable of handling uncertainty and improving their performance in various real-world applications.This research focuses on the problem of manipulator control in the presence of uncertainty and aims to compare different approaches for handling uncertainty while developing robust and adaptive methods that can control the robot without explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. Uncertainty is a pervasive challenge in robotics, arising from various sources such as sensor noise, modeling errors, and external disturbances. Effectively addressing uncertainty is crucial for achieving accurate and reliable manipulator control. The research will explore and compare existing methods for uncertainty handling such as robust feedback linearization , sliding mode control and robust adaptive control. These methods provide mechanisms to model and compensate for uncertainty in the control system. Additionally, modified robust and adaptive control methods will be developed that can dynamically adjust control laws based on the observed states, without requiring explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. To evaluate the performance of the different approaches, comprehensive experiments will be conducted on a manipulator platform. Various manipulation tasks will be performed under different levels of uncertainty, and the performance of each control approach will be assessed in terms of accuracy, stability, and adaptability. Comparative analysis will be conducted to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each method and identify the most effective approach for handling uncertainty in manipulator control. The outcomes of this research will contribute to the advancement of manipulator control by providing insights into the effectiveness of different approaches for uncertainty handling. The development of new robust and adaptive control methods will enable manipulators to operate in uncertain environments without requiring explicit knowledge of uncertainty bounds. Ultimately, this research will facilitate the deployment of more reliable and adaptive robotic systems capable of handling uncertainty and improving their performance in various real-world applications

Industrial Robotics

This book covers a wide range of topics relating to advanced industrial robotics, sensors and automation technologies. Although being highly technical and complex in nature, the papers presented in this book represent some of the latest cutting edge technologies and advancements in industrial robotics technology. This book covers topics such as networking, properties of manipulators, forward and inverse robot arm kinematics, motion path-planning, machine vision and many other practical topics too numerous to list here. The authors and editor of this book wish to inspire people, especially young ones, to get involved with robotic and mechatronic engineering technology and to develop new and exciting practical applications, perhaps using the ideas and concepts presented herein

Evaluation of automated decisionmaking methodologies and development of an integrated robotic system simulation

A generic computer simulation for manipulator systems (ROBSIM) was implemented and the specific technologies necessary to increase the role of automation in various missions were developed. The specific items developed are: (1) capability for definition of a manipulator system consisting of multiple arms, load objects, and an environment; (2) capability for kinematic analysis, requirements analysis, and response simulation of manipulator motion; (3) postprocessing options such as graphic replay of simulated motion and manipulator parameter plotting; (4) investigation and simulation of various control methods including manual force/torque and active compliances control; (5) evaluation and implementation of three obstacle avoidance methods; (6) video simulation and edge detection; and (7) software simulation validation

\u3cem\u3eGRASP News\u3c/em\u3e, Volume 6, Number 1

A report of the General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, edited by Gregory Long and Alok Gupta

An Indirect Adaptive Control Approach to Image Based Visual Servoing for Translational Trajectory Tracking

publishedVersio

Autonomous Sweet Pepper Harvesting for Protected Cropping Systems

In this letter, we present a new robotic harvester (Harvey) that can autonomously harvest sweet pepper in protected cropping environments. Our approach combines effective vision algorithms with a novel end-effector design to enable successful harvesting of sweet peppers. Initial field trials in protected cropping environments, with two cultivar, demonstrate the efficacy of this approach achieving a 46% success rate for unmodified crop, and 58% for modified crop. Furthermore, for the more favourable cultivar we were also able to detach 90% of sweet peppers, indicating that improvements in the grasping success rate would result in greatly improved harvesting performance