Industrial automation and control in hazardous nuclear environments

textThis report discusses the design and implementation of an automated system for use in geometrically-constrained, hazardous glovebox environments. This system’s purpose is to reduce a hemispherical plutonium pit into smaller pieces that fit inside of a crucible. The size reduction of plutonium pits supports stockpile stewardship efforts by the United States Department of Energy. The automation of this process increases the safety of radiation workers by handling radioactive nuclear material. This decreases glovebox worker dose and exposure to tools, sharps, and fines. This effort examines the hardware and software framework developed to support the use of a Port Deployed Manipulator (PDM) for a contact task. This research effort uses a 7 Degree-of-Freedom (DOF) PDM and a micropunch to reduce hemispherical pit surrogates. Formulation of the material reduction execution algorithm involved addressing a variety of topics related to industrial automation: 1. Collision detection and object recognition based on user-specified parameters. 2. Joint torque monitoring 3. Online motion planning for contact tasks 4. Object-in-hand industrial manufacturing 5. Grasping and handling of nuclear material 6. Software compliance via robust nonlinear control methods A high-bandwidth collision detection algorithm involving joint torque monitoring was developed to increase robot safety during operation. The motion planning algorithm developed for this effort takes variable geometric properties to be used with a range of hemishells. The algorithm’s feasibility was validated on a hardware test bed in a laboratory setting. Hardware cold tests conclude that mechanical compliance is sufficient for task completion. However, software compliance would increase performance, ef- ficiency, and safety during task execution. Two different nonlinear force control laws (feedback linearization and sliding mode control) that minimize object shear forces were developed using a simplified material reduction simulation. It is recommended that glovebox automation research continue to increase worker safety throughout the DOE complex.Mechanical Engineerin

Human-robot cooperation for robust surface treatment using non-conventional sliding mode control

© 2018 ISA This work presents a human-robot closely collaborative solution to cooperatively perform surface treatment tasks such as polishing, grinding, deburring, etc. The method considers two force sensors attached to the manipulator end-effector and tool: one sensor is used to properly accomplish the surface treatment task, while the second one is used by the operator to guide the robot tool. The proposed scheme is based on task priority and adaptive non-conventional sliding mode control. The applicability of the proposed approach is substantiated by experimental results using a redundant 7R manipulator: the Sawyer cobot

Human-robot cooperation for robust surface treatment using non-conventional sliding mode control

[EN] This work presents a human-robot closely collaborative solution to cooperatively perform surface treatment tasks such as polishing, grinding, deburring, etc. The method considers two force sensors attached to the manipulator end-effector and tool: one sensor is used to properly accomplish the surface treatment task, while the second one is used by the operator to guide the robot tool. The proposed scheme is based on task priority and adaptive non-conventional sliding mode control. The applicability of the proposed approach is substantiated by experimental results using a redundant 7R manipulator: the Sawyer cobot.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government under the project DPI2017-87656-C2-1-R and the Generalitat Valenciana under Grants VALi + d APOSTD/2016/044 and APOSTD/2017/055.Solanes Galbis, JE.; Gracia Calandin, LI.; Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Valls Miro, J.; Girbés, V.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2018). Human-robot cooperation for robust surface treatment using non-conventional sliding mode control. ISA Transactions. 80(1):528-541. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2018.05.013S52854180

Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for Robotic Surface Treatment Using Force Feedback

[EN] This work presents a hybrid position-force control of robots in order to apply surface treatments such as polishing, grinding, finishing, deburring, etc. The robot force control is designed using sliding mode concepts to benefit from robustness. In particular, the sliding mode force task is defined using equality constraints to attain the desired tool pressure on the surface, as well as to keep the tool orientation perpendicular to the surface. In order to deal with sudden changes in material stiffness, which are ultimately transferred to the polishing tool and can produce instability and compromise polishing performance, several adaptive switching gain laws are considered and compared. Moreover, a lower priority tracking controller is defined to follow the desired reference trajectory on the surface being polished. Hence, deviations from the reference trajectory are allowed if such deviations are required to satisfy the constraints mentioned above. Finally, a third-level task is also considered for the case of redundant robots in order to use the remaining degrees of freedom to keep the manipulator close to the home configuration with safety in mind. The main advantages of the method are increased robustness and low computational cost. The applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach are substantiated by experimental results using a redundant 7R manipulator: the Rethink Robotics Sawyer collaborative robot.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government under the project DPI2017-87656-C2-1-R and the Generalitat Valenciana under Grants VALi + d APOSTD/2016/044 and BEST/2017/029.Gracia Calandin, LI.; Solanes Galbis, JE.; Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Valls Miro, J.; Perez-Vidal, C.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2018). Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for Robotic Surface Treatment Using Force Feedback. Mechatronics. 52:102-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2018.04.008S1021185

Advanced teleoperation and control system for industrial robots based on augmented virtuality and haptic feedback

There are some industrial tasks that are still mainly performed manually by human workers due to their complexity, which is the case of surface treatment operations (such as sanding, deburring, finishing, grinding, polishing, etc.) used to repair defects. This work develops an advanced teleoperation and control system for industrial robots in order to assist the human operator to perform the mentioned tasks. On the one hand, the controlled robotic system provides strength and accuracy, holding the tool, keeping the right tool orientation and guaranteeing a smooth approach to the workpiece. On the other hand, the advanced teleoperation provides security and comfort to the user when performing the task. In particular, the proposed teleoperation uses augmented virtuality (i.e., a virtual world that includes non-modeled real-world data) and haptic feedback to provide the user an immersive virtual experience when remotely teleoperating the tool of the robot system to treat arbitrary regions of the workpiece surface. The method is illustrated with a car body surface treatment operation, although it can be easily extended to other surface treatment applications or even to other industrial tasks where the human operator may benefit from robotic assistance. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown with several experiments using a 6R robotic arm. Moreover, a comparison of the performance obtained manually by an expert and that obtained with the proposed method has also been conducted in order to show the suitability of the proposed approach

Human-robot collaboration for surface treatment tasks

[EN] This paper presents a human-robot closely collaborative solution to cooperatively perform surface treatment tasks such as polishing, grinding, finishing, deburring, etc. The proposed scheme is based on task priority and non-conventional sliding mode control. Furthermore, the proposal includes two force sensors attached to the manipulator end-effector and tool: one sensor is used to properly accomplish the surface treatment task, while the second one is used by the operator to guide the robot tool. The applicability and feasibility of the proposed collaborative solution for robotic surface treatment are substantiated by experimental results using a redundant 7R manipulator: the Sawyer collaborative robot.This work was supported in part by the Spanish Government under the project DPI-201787656-C2-1-R and the Generalitat Valenciana under Grant VALi+d.Gracia Calandin, LI.; Solanes Galbis, JE.; Muñoz-Benavent, P.; Valls Miro, J.; Perez-Vidal, C.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2019). 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D., Meek, S. G., & Minor, M. A. (2008). Hybrid Force–Velocity Sliding Mode Control of a Prosthetic Hand. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 55(5), 1572-1581. doi:10.1109/tbme.2007.914672Etzioni, A., & Etzioni, O. (2017). The ethics of robotic caregivers. Interaction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, 18(2), 174-190. doi:10.1075/is.18.2.02etzDe Graaf, M. M. A., Ben Allouch, S., & van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2016). Long-term evaluation of a social robot in real homes. Interaction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, 17(3), 461-490. doi:10.1075/is.17.3.08degJlassi, S., Tliba, S., & Chitour, Y. (2014). An event-controlled online trajectory generator based on the human-robot interaction force processing. Industrial Robot: An International Journal, 41(1), 15-25. doi:10.1108/ir-01-2013-317Khan, A. M., Yun, D., Zuhaib, K. M., Iqbal, J., Yan, R.-J., Khan, F., & Han, C. (2017). Estimation of Desired Motion Intention and compliance control for upper limb assist exoskeleton. International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, 15(2), 802-814. doi:10.1007/s12555-015-0151-7Levant, A. (2003). Higher-order sliding modes, differentiation and output-feedback control. International Journal of Control, 76(9-10), 924-941. doi:10.1080/0020717031000099029Levant, A. (2005). Quasi-continuous high-order sliding-mode controllers. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 50(11), 1812-1816. doi:10.1109/tac.2005.858646Martínez, S. S., Ortega, J. G., García, J. G., García, A. S., & Estévez, E. E. (2013). An industrial vision system for surface quality inspection of transparent parts. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 68(5-8), 1123-1136. doi:10.1007/s00170-013-4904-2Massoud, A. T., ElMaraghy, H. A., & Lahdhiri, T. (1999). Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, 25(3), 227-254. doi:10.1023/a:1008099522350Mitra, A., & Behera, L. (2015). Development of a Fuzzy Sliding Mode Controller with adaptive tuning technique for a MRI guided robot in the human vasculature. 2015 IEEE 13th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN). doi:10.1109/indin.2015.7281763Molina, J., Solanes, J. E., Arnal, L., & Tornero, J. (2017). On the detection of defects on specular car body surfaces. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 48, 263-278. doi:10.1016/j.rcim.2017.04.009Nakamura, Y., Hanafusa, H., & Yoshikawa, T. (1987). Task-Priority Based Redundancy Control of Robot Manipulators. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 6(2), 3-15. doi:10.1177/027836498700600201Ortaç, G., Bilgi, A. S., Taşdemir, K., & Kalkan, H. (2016). A hyperspectral imaging based control system for quality assessment of dried figs. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 130, 38-47. doi:10.1016/j.compag.2016.10.001Papadopoulos, F., Küster, D., Corrigan, L. J., Kappas, A., & Castellano, G. (2016). Do relative positions and proxemics affect the engagement in a Human-Robot collaborative scenario? Interaction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, 17(3), 321-347. doi:10.1075/is.17.3.01papRoswell, A., Xi, F. (Jeff), & Liu, G. (2006). Modelling and analysis of contact stress for automated polishing. International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, 46(3-4), 424-435. doi:10.1016/j.ijmachtools.2005.05.006Sakaino, S., & Ohnishi, K. (2006). Sliding Mode Control Based on Position Control for Contact Motion Applied to Hopping Robot. 2006 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology. doi:10.1109/icit.2006.372347Shi, Y., Zheng, D., Hu, L., Wang, Y., & Wang, L. (2011). NC polishing of aspheric surfaces under control of constant pressure using a magnetorheological torque servo. 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High-Speed Vision and Force Feedback for Motion-Controlled Industrial Manipulators

Over the last decades, both force sensors and cameras have emerged as useful sensors for different applications in robotics. This thesis considers a number of dynamic visual tracking and control problems, as well as the integration of these techniques with contact force control. Different topics ranging from basic theory to system implementation and applications are treated. A new interface developed for external sensor control is presented, designed by making non-intrusive extensions to a standard industrial robot control system. The structure of these extensions are presented, the system properties are modeled and experimentally verified, and results from force-controlled stub grinding and deburring experiments are presented. A novel system for force-controlled drilling using a standard industrial robot is also demonstrated. The solution is based on the use of force feedback to control the contact forces and the sliding motions of the pressure foot, which would otherwise occur during the drilling phase. Basic methods for feature-based tracking and servoing are presented, together with an extension for constrained motion estimation based on a dual quaternion pose parametrization. A method for multi-camera real-time rigid body tracking with time constraints is also presented, based on an optimal selection of the measured features. The developed tracking methods are used as the basis for two different approaches to vision/force control, which are illustrated in experiments. Intensity-based techniques for tracking and vision-based control are also developed. A dynamic visual tracking technique based directly on the image intensity measurements is presented, together with new stability-based methods suitable for dynamic tracking and feedback problems. The stability-based methods outperform the previous methods in many situations, as shown in simulations and experiments

Impact of Ear Occlusion on In-Ear Sounds Generated by Intra-oral Behaviors

We conducted a case study with one volunteer and a recording setup to detect sounds induced by the actions: jaw clenching, tooth grinding, reading, eating, and drinking. The setup consisted of two in-ear microphones, where the left ear was semi-occluded with a commercially available earpiece and the right ear was occluded with a mouldable silicon ear piece. Investigations in the time and frequency domains demonstrated that for behaviors such as eating, tooth grinding, and reading, sounds could be recorded with both sensors. For jaw clenching, however, occluding the ear with a mouldable piece was necessary to enable its detection. This can be attributed to the fact that the mouldable ear piece sealed the ear canal and isolated it from the environment, resulting in a detectable change in pressure. In conclusion, our work suggests that detecting behaviors such as eating, grinding, reading with a semi-occluded ear is possible, whereas, behaviors such as clenching require the complete occlusion of the ear if the activity should be easily detectable. Nevertheless, the latter approach may limit real-world applicability because it hinders the hearing capabilities.</p