Sliding mode control for robust and smooth reference tracking in robot visual servoing

[EN] An approach based on sliding mode is proposed in this work for reference tracking in robot visual servoing. In particular, 2 sliding mode controls are obtained depending on whether joint accelerations or joint jerks are considered as the discontinuous control action. Both sliding mode controls are extensively compared in a 3D-simulated environment with their equivalent well-known continuous controls, which can be found in the literature, to highlight their similarities and differences. The main advantages of the proposed method are smoothness, robustness, and low computational cost. The applicability and robustness of the proposed approach are substantiated by experimental results using a conventional 6R industrial manipulator (KUKA KR 6 R900 sixx [AGILUS]) for positioning and tracking tasks.Spanish Government, Grant/Award Number: BES-2010-038486; Generalitat Valenciana, Grant/Award Number: BEST/2017/029 and APOSTD/2016/044Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Gracia, L.; Solanes, JE.; Esparza, A.; Tornero, J. (2018). Sliding mode control for robust and smooth reference tracking in robot visual servoing. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 28(5):1728-1756. https://doi.org/10.1002/rnc.3981S17281756285Hutchinson, S., Hager, G. D., & Corke, P. I. (1996). A tutorial on visual servo control. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 12(5), 651-670. doi:10.1109/70.538972Chaumette, F., & Hutchinson, S. (2008). Visual Servoing and Visual Tracking. Springer Handbook of Robotics, 563-583. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-30301-5_25Corke, P. (2011). Robotics, Vision and Control. 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On improving robot image-based visual servoing based on dual-rate reference filtering control strategy. Robotica, 34(12), 2842-2859. doi:10.1017/s0263574715000454Elena M Cristiano M Damiano F Bonfe M Variable structure PID controller for cooperative eye-in-hand/eye-to-hand visual servoing 2003 Istanbul, Turkey https://doi.org/10.1109/CCA.2003.1223145Hashimoto, K., Ebine, T., & Kimura, H. (1996). Visual servoing with hand-eye manipulator-optimal control approach. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 12(5), 766-774. doi:10.1109/70.538981Chan A Leonard S Croft EA Little JJ Collision-free visual servoing of an eye-in-hand manipulator via constraint-aware planning and control 2011 San Francisco, CA, USA https://doi.org/10.1109/ACC.2011.5991008Allibert, G., Courtial, E., & Chaumette, F. (2010). Visual Servoing via Nonlinear Predictive Control. Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences, 375-393. doi:10.1007/978-1-84996-089-2_20Kragic, D., & Christensen, H. I. (2003). Robust Visual Servoing. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 22(10-11), 923-939. doi:10.1177/027836490302210009Mezouar Y Chaumette F Path planning in image space for robust visual servoing 2000 San Francisco, CA, USA https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2000.846445Morel, G., Zanne, P., & Plestan, F. (2005). Robust visual servoing: bounding the task function tracking errors. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 13(6), 998-1009. doi:10.1109/tcst.2005.857409Hammouda, L., Kaaniche, K., Mekki, H., & Chtourou, M. (2015). Robust visual servoing using global features based on random process. International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, 5(2), 138. doi:10.1504/ijcvr.2015.068803Yang YX Liu D Liu H Robot-self-learning visual servoing algorithm using neural networks 2002 Beijing, China https://doi.org/10.1109/ICMLC.2002.1174473Sadeghzadeh, M., Calvert, D., & Abdullah, H. A. (2014). Self-Learning Visual Servoing of Robot Manipulator Using Explanation-Based Fuzzy Neural Networks and Q-Learning. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 78(1), 83-104. doi:10.1007/s10846-014-0151-5Lee AX Levine S Abbeel P Learning Visual Servoing With Deep Features and Fitted Q-Iteration 2017Fakhry, H. H., & Wilson, W. J. (1996). A modified resolved acceleration controller for position-based visual servoing. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 24(5-6), 1-9. doi:10.1016/0895-7177(96)00112-4Keshmiri, M., Wen-Fang Xie, & Mohebbi, A. (2014). Augmented Image-Based Visual Servoing of a Manipulator Using Acceleration Command. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 61(10), 5444-5452. doi:10.1109/tie.2014.2300048Edwards, C., & Spurgeon, S. (1998). Sliding Mode Control. doi:10.1201/9781498701822Zanne P Morel G Piestan F Robust vision based 3D trajectory tracking using sliding mode control 2000 San Francisco, CA, USAOliveira TR Peixoto AJ Leite AC Hsu L Sliding mode control of uncertain multivariable nonlinear systems applied to uncalibrated robotics visual servoing 2009 St. Louis, MO, USAOliveira, T. R., Leite, A. C., Peixoto, A. J., & Hsu, L. (2014). Overcoming Limitations of Uncalibrated Robotics Visual Servoing by means of Sliding Mode Control and Switching Monitoring Scheme. Asian Journal of Control, 16(3), 752-764. doi:10.1002/asjc.899Li, F., & Xie, H.-L. (2010). Sliding mode variable structure control for visual servoing system. International Journal of Automation and Computing, 7(3), 317-323. doi:10.1007/s11633-010-0509-5Kim J Kim D Choi S Won S Image-based visual servoing using sliding mode control 2006 Busan, South KoreaBurger W Dean-Leon E Cheng G Robust second order sliding mode control for 6D position based visual servoing with a redundant mobile manipulator 2015 Seoul, South KoreaBecerra, H. M., López-Nicolás, G., & Sagüés, C. (2011). A Sliding-Mode-Control Law for Mobile Robots Based on Epipolar Visual Servoing From Three Views. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 27(1), 175-183. doi:10.1109/tro.2010.2091750Parsapour, M., & Taghirad, H. D. (2015). Kernel-based sliding mode control for visual servoing system. IET Computer Vision, 9(3), 309-320. doi:10.1049/iet-cvi.2013.0310Xin J Ran BJ Ma XM Robot visual sliding mode servoing using SIFT features 2016 Chengdu, ChinaZhao, Y. M., Lin, Y., Xi, F., Guo, S., & Ouyang, P. (2016). Switch-Based Sliding Mode Control for Position-Based Visual Servoing of Robotic Riveting System. Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, 139(4). doi:10.1115/1.4034681Moosavian, S. A. A., & Papadopoulos, E. (2007). Modified transpose Jacobian control of robotic systems. Automatica, 43(7), 1226-1233. doi:10.1016/j.automatica.2006.12.029Sagara, S., & Taira, Y. (2008). Digital control of space robot manipulators with velocity type joint controller using transpose of generalized Jacobian matrix. Artificial Life and Robotics, 13(1), 355-358. doi:10.1007/s10015-008-0584-7Khalaji, A. K., & Moosavian, S. A. A. (2015). Modified transpose Jacobian control of a tractor-trailer wheeled robot. Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, 29(9), 3961-3969. doi:10.1007/s12206-015-0841-3Utkin, V., Guldner, J., & Shi, J. (2017). Sliding Mode Control in Electro-Mechanical Systems. doi:10.1201/9781420065619Utkin, V. (2016). Discussion Aspects of High-Order Sliding Mode Control. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 61(3), 829-833. doi:10.1109/tac.2015.2450571Romdhane, H., Dehri, K., & Nouri, A. S. (2016). Discrete second-order sliding mode control based on optimal sliding function vector for multivariable systems with input-output representation. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 26(17), 3806-3830. doi:10.1002/rnc.3536Sharma, N. K., & Janardhanan, S. (2017). Optimal discrete higher-order sliding mode control of uncertain LTI systems with partial state information. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. doi:10.1002/rnc.3785LEVANT, A. (1993). Sliding order and sliding accuracy in sliding mode control. International Journal of Control, 58(6), 1247-1263. doi:10.1080/00207179308923053Levant, A. (2003). Higher-order sliding modes, differentiation and output-feedback control. International Journal of Control, 76(9-10), 924-941. doi:10.1080/0020717031000099029Bartolini, G., Ferrara, A., & Usai, E. (1998). Chattering avoidance by second-order sliding mode control. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 43(2), 241-246. doi:10.1109/9.661074Siciliano, B., Sciavicco, L., Villani, L., & Oriolo, G. (2009). Robotics. Advanced Textbooks in Control and Signal Processing. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-642-1Deo, A. S., & Walker, I. D. (1995). Overview of damped least-squares methods for inverse kinematics of robot manipulators. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 14(1), 43-68. doi:10.1007/bf01254007WHEELER, G., SU, C.-Y., & STEPANENKO, Y. (1998). A Sliding Mode Controller with Improved Adaptation Laws for the Upper Bounds on the Norm of Uncertainties. Automatica, 34(12), 1657-1661. doi:10.1016/s0005-1098(98)80024-1Yu-Sheng Lu. (2009). Sliding-Mode Disturbance Observer With Switching-Gain Adaptation and Its Application to Optical Disk Drives. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 56(9), 3743-3750. doi:10.1109/tie.2009.2025719Chen, X., Shen, W., Cao, Z., & Kapoor, A. (2014). A novel approach for state of charge estimation based on adaptive switching gain sliding mode observer in electric vehicles. Journal of Power Sources, 246, 667-678. doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.08.039Cong, B. L., Chen, Z., & Liu, X. D. (2012). On adaptive sliding mode control without switching gain overestimation. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 24(3), 515-531. doi:10.1002/rnc.2902Taleb, M., Plestan, F., & Bououlid, B. (2014). An adaptive solution for robust control based on integral high-order sliding mode concept. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 25(8), 1201-1213. doi:10.1002/rnc.3135Zhu, J., & Khayati, K. (2016). On a new adaptive sliding mode control for MIMO nonlinear systems with uncertainties of unknown bounds. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, 27(6), 942-962. doi:10.1002/rnc.3608Hafez AHA Cervera E Jawahar CV Hybrid visual servoing by boosting IBVS and PBVS 2008 Damascus, SyriaKermorgant O Chaumette F Combining IBVS and PBVS to ensure the visibility constraint 2011 San Francisco, CA, USACorke, P. I., & Hutchinson, S. A. (2001). A new partitioned approach to image-based visual servo control. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 17(4), 507-515. doi:10.1109/70.954764Yang, Z., & Shen, S. (2017). Monocular Visual–Inertial State Estimation With Online Initialization and Camera–IMU Extrinsic Calibration. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 14(1), 39-51. doi:10.1109/tase.2016.2550621Chesi G Hashimoto K Static-eye against hand-eye visual servoing 2002 Las Vegas, NV, USABourdis N Marraud D Sahbi H Camera pose estimation using visual servoing for aerial video change detection 2012 Munich, GermanyShademan A Janabi-Sharifi F Sensitivity analysis of EKF and iterated EKF pose estimation for position-based visual servoing 2005 USAMalis, E., Mezouar, Y., & Rives, P. (2010). Robustness of Image-Based Visual Servoing With a Calibrated Camera in the Presence of Uncertainties in the Three-Dimensional Structure. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 26(1), 112-120. doi:10.1109/tro.2009.2033332Chen J Behal A Dawson D Dixon W Adaptive visual servoing in the presence of intrinsic calibration uncertainty 2003 USAMezouar Y Malis E Robustness of central catadioptric image-based visual servoing to uncertainties on 3D parameters 2004 Sendai, JapanMarchand, E., Spindler, F., & Chaumette, F. (2005). ViSP for visual servoing: a generic software platform with a wide class of robot control skills. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 12(4), 40-52. doi:10.1109/mra.2005.157702

Robust Position-based Visual Servoing of Industrial Robots

Recently, the researchers have tried to use dynamic pose correction methods to improve the accuracy of industrial robots. The application of dynamic path tracking aims at adjusting the end-effector’s pose by using a photogrammetry sensor and eye-to-hand PBVS scheme. In this study, the research aims to enhance the accuracy of industrial robot by designing a chattering-free digital sliding mode controller integrated with a novel adaptive robust Kalman filter (ARKF) validated on Puma 560 model on simulation. This study includes Gaussian noise generation, pose estimation, design of adaptive robust Kalman filter, and design of chattering-free sliding mode controller. The designed control strategy has been validated and compared with other control strategies in Matlab 2018a Simulink on a 64bits PC computer. The main contributions of the research work are summarized as follows. First, the noise removal in the pose estimation is carried out by the novel ARKF. The proposed ARKF deals with experimental noise generated from photogrammetry observation sensor C-track 780. It exploits the advantages of adaptive estimation method for states noise covariance (Q), least square identification for measurement noise covariance (R) and a robust mechanism for state variables error covariance (P). The Gaussian noise generation is based on the collected data from the C-track when the robot is in a stationary status. A novel method for estimating covariance matrix R considering both effects of the velocity and pose is suggested. Next, a robust PBVS approach for industrial robots based on fast discrete sliding mode controller (FDSMC) and ARKF is proposed. The FDSMC takes advantage of a nonlinear reaching law which results in faster and more accurate trajectory tracking compared to standard DSMC. Substituting the switching function with a continuous nonlinear reaching law leads to a continuous output and thus eliminating the chattering. Additionally, the sliding surface dynamics is considered to be a nonlinear one, which results in increasing the convergence speed and accuracy. Finally, the analysis techniques related to various types of sliding mode controller have been used for comparison. Also, the kinematic and dynamic models with revolutionary joints for Puma 560 are built for simulation validation. Based on the computed indicators results, it is proven that after tuning the parameters of designed controller, the chattering-free FDSMC integrated with ARKF can essentially reduce the effect of uncertainties on robot dynamic model and improve the tracking accuracy of the 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) robot

Robot Visual Servoing Using Discontinuous Control

This work presents different proposals to deal with common problems in robot visual servoing based on the application of discontinuous control methods. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approaches are substantiated by simulation results and real experiments using a 6R industrial manipulator. The main contributions are: - Geometric invariance using sliding mode control (Chapter 3): the defined higher-order invariance is used by the proposed approaches to tackle problems in visual servoing. Proofs of invariance condition are presented. - Fulfillment of constraints in visual servoing (Chapter 4): the proposal uses sliding mode methods to satisfy mechanical and visual constraints in visual servoing, while a secondary task is considered to properly track the target object. The main advantages of the proposed approach are: low computational cost, robustness and fully utilization of the allowed space for the constraints. - Robust auto tool change for industrial robots using visual servoing (Chapter 4): visual servoing and the proposed method for constraints fulfillment are applied to an automated solution for tool changing in industrial robots. The robustness of the proposed method is due to the control law of the visual servoing, which uses the information acquired by the vision system to close a feedback control loop. Furthermore, sliding mode control is simultaneously used in a prioritized level to satisfy the aforementioned constraints. Thus, the global control accurately places the tool in the warehouse, but satisfying the robot constraints. - Sliding mode controller for reference tracking (Chapter 5): an approach based on sliding mode control is proposed for reference tracking in robot visual servoing using industrial robot manipulators. The novelty of the proposal is the introduction of a sliding mode controller that uses a high-order discontinuous control signal, i.e., joint accelerations or joint jerks, in order to obtain a smoother behavior and ensure the robot system stability, which is demonstrated with a theoretical proof. - PWM and PFM for visual servoing in fully decoupled approaches (Chapter 6): discontinuous control based on pulse width and pulse frequency modulation is proposed for fully decoupled position based visual servoing approaches, in order to get the same convergence time for camera translation and rotation. Moreover, other results obtained in visual servoing applications are also described.Este trabajo presenta diferentes propuestas para tratar problemas habituales en el control de robots por realimentación visual, basadas en la aplicación de métodos de control discontinuos. La viabilidad y eficacia de las propuestas se fundamenta con resultados en simulación y con experimentos reales utilizando un robot manipulador industrial 6R. Las principales contribuciones son: - Invariancia geométrica utilizando control en modo deslizante (Capítulo 3): la invariancia de alto orden definida aquí es utilizada después por los métodos propuestos, para tratar problemas en control por realimentación visual. Se apuertan pruebas teóricas de la condición de invariancia. - Cumplimiento de restricciones en control por realimentación visual (Capítulo 4): esta propuesta utiliza métodos de control en modo deslizante para satisfacer restricciones mecánicas y visuales en control por realimentación visual, mientras una tarea secundaria se encarga del seguimiento del objeto. Las principales ventajas de la propuesta son: bajo coste computacional, robustez y plena utilización del espacio disponible para las restricciones. - Cambio de herramienta robusto para un robot industrial mediante control por realimentación visual (Capítulo 4): el control por realimentación visual y el método propuesto para el cumplimiento de las restricciones se aplican a una solución automatizada para el cambio de herramienta en robots industriales. La robustez de la propuesta radica en el uso del control por realimentación visual, que utiliza información del sistema de visión para cerrar el lazo de control. Además, el control en modo deslizante se utiliza simultáneamente en un nivel de prioridad superior para satisfacer las restricciones. Así pues, el control es capaz de dejar la herramienta en el intercambiador de herramientas de forma precisa, a la par que satisface las restricciones del robot. - Controlador en modo deslizante para seguimiento de referencia (Capítulo 5): se propone un enfoque basado en el control en modo deslizante para seguimiento de referencia en robots manipuladores industriales controlados por realimentación visual. La novedad de la propuesta radica en la introducción de un controlador en modo deslizante que utiliza la señal de control discontinua de alto orden, i.e. aceleraciones o jerks de las articulaciones, para obtener un comportamiento más suave y asegurar la estabilidad del sistema robótico, lo que se demuestra con una prueba teórica. - Control por realimentación visual mediante PWM y PFM en métodos completamente desacoplados (Capítulo 6): se propone un control discontinuo basado en modulación del ancho y frecuencia del pulso para métodos completamente desacoplados de control por realimentación visual basados en posición, con el objetivo de conseguir el mismo tiempo de convergencia para los movimientos de rotación y traslación de la cámara . Además, se presentan también otros resultados obtenidos en aplicaciones de control por realimentación visual.Aquest treball presenta diferents propostes per a tractar problemes habituals en el control de robots per realimentació visual, basades en l'aplicació de mètodes de control discontinus. La viabilitat i eficàcia de les propostes es fonamenta amb resultats en simulació i amb experiments reals utilitzant un robot manipulador industrial 6R. Les principals contribucions són: - Invariància geomètrica utilitzant control en mode lliscant (Capítol 3): la invariància d'alt ordre definida ací és utilitzada després pels mètodes proposats, per a tractar problemes en control per realimentació visual. S'aporten proves teòriques de la condició d'invariància. - Compliment de restriccions en control per realimentació visual (Capítol 4): aquesta proposta utilitza mètodes de control en mode lliscant per a satisfer restriccions mecàniques i visuals en control per realimentació visual, mentre una tasca secundària s'encarrega del seguiment de l'objecte. Els principals avantatges de la proposta són: baix cost computacional, robustesa i plena utilització de l'espai disponible per a les restriccions. - Canvi de ferramenta robust per a un robot industrial mitjançant control per realimentació visual (Capítol 4): el control per realimentació visual i el mètode proposat per al compliment de les restriccions s'apliquen a una solució automatitzada per al canvi de ferramenta en robots industrials. La robustesa de la proposta radica en l'ús del control per realimentació visual, que utilitza informació del sistema de visió per a tancar el llaç de control. A més, el control en mode lliscant s'utilitza simultàniament en un nivell de prioritat superior per a satisfer les restriccions. Així doncs, el control és capaç de deixar la ferramenta en l'intercanviador de ferramentes de forma precisa, a la vegada que satisfà les restriccions del robot. - Controlador en mode lliscant per a seguiment de referència (Capítol 5): es proposa un enfocament basat en el control en mode lliscant per a seguiment de referència en robots manipuladors industrials controlats per realimentació visual. La novetat de la proposta radica en la introducció d'un controlador en mode lliscant que utilitza senyal de control discontínua d'alt ordre, i.e. acceleracions o jerks de les articulacions, per a obtindre un comportament més suau i assegurar l'estabilitat del sistema robòtic, la qual cosa es demostra amb una prova teòrica. - Control per realimentació visual mitjançant PWM i PFM en mètodes completament desacoblats (Capítol 6): es proposa un control discontinu basat en modulació de l'ample i la freqüència del pols per a mètodes completament desacoblats de control per realimentació visual basats en posició, amb l'objectiu d'aconseguir el mateix temps de convergència per als moviments de rotació i translació de la càmera. A més, es presenten també altres resultats obtinguts en aplicacions de control per realimentació visual.Muñoz Benavent, P. (2017). Robot Visual Servoing Using Discontinuous Control [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/90430TESI

Robust fulfillment of constraints in robot visual servoing

[EN] In this work, an approach based on sliding mode ideas is proposed to satisfy constraints in robot visual servoing. In particular, different types of constraints are defined in order to: fulfill the visibility constraints (camera fieldof-view and occlusions) for the image features of the detected object; to avoid exceeding the joint range limits and maximum joint speeds; and to avoid forbidden areas in the robot workspace. Moreover, another task with low-priority is considered to track the target object. The main advantages of the proposed approach are low computational cost, robustness and fully utilization of the allowed space for the constraints. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by simulation results for a simple 2D case and a complex 3D case study. Furthermore, the feasibility and robustness of the proposed approach is substantiated by experimental results using a conventional 6R industrial manipulator.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government under grants BES-2010-038486 and Project DPI2013-42302-R, and the Generalitat Valenciana under grants VALi+d APOSTD/2016/044 and BEST/2017/029.Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Gracia Calandin, LI.; Solanes Galbis, JE.; Esparza Peidro, A.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2018). Robust fulfillment of constraints in robot visual servoing. Control Engineering Practice. 71(1):79-95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conengprac.2017.10.017S799571

Generalization of reference filtering control strategy for 2D/3D visual feedback control of industrial robot manipulators

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Solanes, J. E., Munoz-Benavent, P., Armesto, L., Gracia, L., & Tornero, J. (2022). Generalization of reference filtering control strategy for 2D/3D visual feedback control of industrial robot manipulators. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 35(3), 229-246, 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0951192X.2021.1973108.[EN] This paper develops the application of the Dual Rate Dual Sampling Reference Filtering Control Strategy to 2D and 3D visual feedback control. This strategy allows to overcome the problem of sensor latency and to address the problem of control task failure due to visual features leaving the camera field of view. In particular, a Dual Rate Kalman Filter is used to generate inter-sample estimations of the visual features to deal with the problem of vision sensor latency, whereas a Dual Rate Extended Kalman Filter Smoother is used to generate more convenient visual features trajectories in the image plane. Both 2D and 3D visual feedback control approaches are widely analyzed throughout the paper, as well as the overall system performance using different visual feedback controllers, providing a set of results that highlight the improvements in terms of solution reachability, robustness, and time domain response. The proposed control strategy has been validated on an industrial system with hard real-time limitations, consisting of a 6 DOF industrial manipulator, a 5 MP camera, and a PLC as controller.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government under the projects PID2020-117421RB-C21 and PID2020116585GB-I00, and in part by the Generalitat Valenciana under the project GV/2021/181.Solanes, JE.; Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Armesto, L.; Gracia Calandin, LI.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2022). Generalization of reference filtering control strategy for 2D/3D visual feedback control of industrial robot manipulators. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. 35(3):229-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951192X.2021.197310822924635

Visual Calibration, Identification and Control of 6-RSS Parallel Robots

Parallel robots present some outstanding advantages in high force-to-weight ratio, better stiffness and theoretical higher accuracy compared with serial manipulators. Hence parallel robots have been utilized increasingly in various applications. However, due to the manufacturing tolerances and defections in the robot structure, the positioning accuracy of parallel robots is basically equivalent with that of serial manipulators according to previous researches on the accuracy analysis of the Stewart Platform [1], which is difficult to meet the precision requirement of many potential applications. In addition, the existence of closed-chain mechanism yields difficulties in designing control system for practical applications, due to its highly coupled dynamics. Visual sensor is a good choice for providing non-contact measurement of the end-effector pose (position and orientation) with simplicity in operation and low cost compared to other measurement methods such as the coordinate measurement machine (CMM) [2] and the laser tracker [3]. In this research, a series of solutions including kinematic calibration, dynamic identification and visual servoing are proposed to improve the positioning and tracking performance of the parallel robot based on the visual sensor. The main contributions of this research include three parts. In the first part, a relative pose-based algorithm (RPBA) is proposed to solve the kinematic calibration problem of a six-revolute-spherical-spherical (6-RSS) parallel robot by using the optical CMM sensor. Based on the relative poses between the candidate and the initial configurations, a calibration algorithm is proposed to determine the optimal error parameters of the robot kinematic model and external parameters introduced by the optical sensor. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposal RPBA using optical CMM is an implementable and effective method for the parallel robot calibration. The second part focuses on the dynamic model identification of the 6-RSS parallel robots. A visual closed-loop output-error identification method based on an optical CMM sensor is proposed for the purpose of the advanced model-based visual servoing control design of parallel robots. By using an outer loop visual servoing controller to stabilize both the parallel robot and the simulated model, the visual closed-loop output-error identification method is developed and the model parameters are identified by using a nonlinear optimization technique. The effectiveness of the proposed identification algorithm is validated by experimental tests. In the last part, a dynamic sliding mode control (DSMC) scheme combined with the visual servoing method is proposed to improve the tracking performance of the 6-RSS parallel robot based on the optical CMM sensor. By employing a position-to-torque converter, the torque command generated by DSMC can be applied to the position controlled industrial robot. The stability of the proposed DSMC has been proved by using Lyapunov theorem. The real-time experiment tests on a 6-RSS parallel robot demonstrate that the developed DSMC scheme is robust to the modeling errors and uncertainties. Compared with the classical kinematic level controllers, the proposed DSMC exhibits the superiority in terms of tracking performance and robustness

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

From visuomotor control to latent space planning for robot manipulation

Deep visuomotor control is emerging as an active research area for robot manipulation. Recent advances in learning sensory and motor systems in an end-to-end manner have achieved remarkable performance across a range of complex tasks. Nevertheless, a few limitations restrict visuomotor control from being more widely adopted as the de facto choice when facing a manipulation task on a real robotic platform. First, imitation learning-based visuomotor control approaches tend to suffer from the inability to recover from an out-of-distribution state caused by compounding errors. Second, the lack of versatility in task definition limits skill generalisability. Finally, the training data acquisition process and domain transfer are often impractical. In this thesis, individual solutions are proposed to address each of these issues. In the first part, we find policy uncertainty to be an effective indicator of potential failure cases, in which the robot is stuck in out-of-distribution states. On this basis, we introduce a novel uncertainty-based approach to detect potential failure cases and a recovery strategy based on action-conditioned uncertainty predictions. Then, we propose to employ visual dynamics approximation to our model architecture to capture the motion of the robot arm instead of the static scene background, making it possible to learn versatile skill primitives. In the second part, taking inspiration from the recent progress in latent space planning, we propose a gradient-based optimisation method operating within the latent space of a deep generative model for motion planning. Our approach bypasses the traditional computational challenges encountered by established planning algorithms, and has the capability to specify novel constraints easily and handle multiple constraints simultaneously. Moreover, the training data comes from simple random motor-babbling of kinematically feasible robot states. Our real-world experiments further illustrate that our latent space planning approach can handle both open and closed-loop planning in challenging environments such as heavily cluttered or dynamic scenes. This leads to the first, to our knowledge, closed-loop motion planning algorithm that can incorporate novel custom constraints, and lays the foundation for more complex manipulation tasks

Line-of-sight-stabilization and tracking control for inertial platforms

Nowadays, line of sight stabilization and tracking using inertially stabilized platforms (ISPs) are still challenging engineering problems. With a growing demand for high-precision applications, more involved control techniques are necessary to achieve better performance. In this work, kinematic and dynamic models for a three degrees-of-freedom ISP are presented. These models are based in the vehicle-manipulator system (VMS) framework for modeling of robot manipulators operating in a mobile base (vehicles). The dynamic model follows the Euler-Lagrange formulation and is implemented by numeric simulations using the iterative Newton-Euler method. Two distinct control strategies for both stabilization and tracking are proposed: (i) computed torque control and (ii) sliding mode control using the recent SuperTwisting Algorithm (STA) combined with a High-Order Sliding Mode Observer (HOSMO). Simulations using data from a simulated vessel allow us to compare the performance of the computed torque controllers with respect to the commonly used P-PI controller. Besides, the results obtained for the sliding mode controllers indicate that the Super-Twisting algorithm offers ideal robustness to the vehicle motion disturbances and also to parametric uncertainties, resulting in a stabilization precision of approximately 0,8 mrad.Hoje em dia, a estabilização e o rastreamento da linha de visada utilizando plataformas inerciais continuam a constituir desafiadores problemas de engenharia. Com a crescente demanda por aplicações de alta precisão, técnicas de controle complexas são necessárias para atingir melhor desempenho. Neste trabalho, modelos cinemáticos e dinâmicos para uma plataforma mecânica de estabilização inercial são apresentados. Tais modelos se baseiam no formalismo para sistemas veículo-manipulator para a modelagem de manipuladores robóticos operando em uma base móvel (veículo). O modelo dinâmico apresentado segue a formulação analítica de Euler-Lagrange e é implementado em simulações numéricas através do método iterativo de Newton-Euler. Duas estratégias de controle distintas para estabilização e rastreamento são propostas: (i) controle por torque-computado e (ii) controle por modos deslizantes utilizando o recente algoritmo Super-Twisting combinado com um observador baseado em modos deslizantes de alta ordem. Simulações utilizando dados de movimentação de um navio simulado permitem comparar o desempenho dos controladores por torque computado em relação a um tipo comum de controlador linear utilizado na literatura: o P-PI. Além disso, os resultados obtidos para o controle por modos deslizantes permitem concluir que o algoritmo Super-Twisting apresenta rejeição ideal a perturbações provenientes do movimento do veículo e também a incertezas paramétricas, resultando em precisão de estabilização de aproximadamente 0,8 mrad