71 research outputs found
Multi-DoF Time Domain Passivity Approach Based Drift Compensation for Telemanipulation
When, in addition to stability, position synchronization is also desired in
bilateral teleoperation, Time Domain Passivity Approach (TDPA) alone might not
be able to fulfill the desired objective. This is due to an undesired effect
caused by admittance type passivity controllers, namely position drift.
Previous works focused on developing TDPA-based drift compensation methods to
solve this issue. It was shown that, in addition to reducing drift, one of the
proposed methods was able to keep the force signals within their normal range,
guaranteeing the safety of the task. However, no multi-DoF treatment of those
approaches has been addressed. In that scope, this paper focuses on providing
an extension of previous TDPA-based approaches to multi-DoF Cartesian-space
teleoperation. An analysis of the convergence properties of the presented
method is also provided. In addition, its applicability to multi-DoF devices is
shown through hardware experiments and numerical simulation with round-trip
time delays up to 700 ms.Comment: 2019 19th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR
Whole-Body Bilateral Teleoperation of a Redundant Aerial Manipulator
Attaching a robotic manipulator to a flying base allows for significant
improvements in the reachability and versatility of manipulation tasks. In
order to explore such systems while taking advantage of human capabilities in
terms of perception and cognition, bilateral teleoperation arises as a
reasonable solution. However, since most telemanipulation tasks require visual
feedback in addition to the haptic one, real-time (task-dependent) positioning
of a video camera, which is usually attached to the flying base, becomes an
additional objective to be fulfilled. Since the flying base is part of the
kinematic structure of the robot, if proper care is not taken, moving the video
camera could undesirably disturb the end-effector motion. For that reason, the
necessity of controlling the base position in the null space of the
manipulation task arises. In order to provide the operator with meaningful
information about the limits of the allowed motions in the null space, this
paper presents a novel haptic concept called Null-Space Wall. In addition, a
framework to allow stable bilateral teleoperation of both tasks is presented.
Numerical simulation data confirm that the proposed framework is able to keep
the system passive while allowing the operator to perform time-delayed
telemanipulation and command the base to a task-dependent optimal pose.Comment: to be published in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation (ICRA
Whole-Body Teleoperation and Shared Control of Redundant Robots with Applications to Aerial Manipulation
This paper introduces a passivity-based control framework for multi-task time-delayed bilateral teleoperation and shared control of kinematically-redundant robots. The proposed method can be seen as extension of state-of-the art hierarchical whole-body control as it allows for some of the tasks to be commanded by a remotely-located human operator through a haptic device while the others are autonomously performed. The operator is able to switch among tasks at any time without compromising the stability of the system. To enforce the passivity of the communication channel as well as to dissipate the energy generated by the null-space projectors used to enforce the hierarchy among the tasks, the Time-Domain Passivity Approach (TDPA) is applied. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated through its application to the DLR Suspended Aerial Manipulator (SAM) in a real telemanipulation scenario with variable time delay, jitter, and package loss
Experimental Evaluation of Novel Master-Slave Configurations for Position Control under Random Network Delay and Variable Load for Teleoperation
This paper proposes two novel master-slave configurations that provide improvements in both control and communication aspects of teleoperation systems to achieve an overall improved performance in position control. The proposed novel master-slave configurations integrate modular control and communication approaches, consisting of a delay regulator to address problems related to variable network delay common to such systems, and a model tracking control that runs on the slave side for the compensation of uncertainties and model mismatch on the slave side. One of the configurations uses a sliding mode observer and the other one uses a modified Smith predictor scheme on the master side to ensure position transparency between the master and slave, while reference tracking of the slave is ensured by a proportional-differentiator type controller in both configurations. Experiments conducted for the networked position control of a single-link arm under system uncertainties and randomly varying network delays demonstrate significant performance improvements with both configurations over the past literature
Haptic Control of Mobile Manipulators Interacting with the Environment
In the modern society the haptic control of robotic manipulators plays a central role in many industrial fields because of the improvement of human capabilities and the
prevention of many hazards that it can provide. Many different studies are focusing on the improvement of the operator experience, aiming at simplifying the control interface and increasing the level of intuitiveness that the system can provide to a non-trained user. This work focus on the control of mobile manipulator platforms, that are gaining popularity in the industrial world because of their capability to merge the manipulation of the environment with a potentially infinite workspace.
In particular three different aspects concerning the haptic shared control of mobile manipulators will be studied. Initially the manipulation of liquid container is analyzed and a new feed-forward filtering technique able to guarantee a slosh free motion without any a priori knowledge of the imposed trajectory is proposed. Then the trajectory planning for a mobile base in an unstructured environment is considered. A new planner based on the properties of B-spline curves is studied and tested for both the haptic and the autonomous case. Eventually the control of a mobile
manipulator by means of a single commercial haptic device is addressed. A new mapping technique able to provide an intuitive interface for the control for the human operator is presented. The effectiveness of the proposed works is confirmed viaseveral experimental tests
A Stable and Transparent Framework for Adaptive Shared Control of Robots
In mixed-initiative haptic shared control of robots, humans and automatic control system work in parallel. The commands to the robot are a weighted sum of forces from these two agents. This thesis develops control methods to improve the force feedback performance for mixed-initiative shared teleoperation and to adapt the control authority between human and automatic control system in a stable manner even in the presence of communication delays. All methods are validated on real robotic hardware
Autonomous landing of fixed-wing aircraft on mobile platforms
E
n esta tesis se propone un nuevo sistema que permite la operación de aeronaves
autónomas sin tren de aterrizaje. El trabajo está motivado por el interés industrial
en aeronaves con la capacidad de volar a gran altitud, con más capacidad de carga útil y
capaces de aterrizar con viento cruzado.
El enfoque seguido en este trabajo consiste en eliminar el sistema de aterrizaje de una
aeronave de ala fija empleando una plataforma móvil de aterrizaje en tierra. La aeronave y
la plataforma deben sincronizar su movimiento antes del aterrizaje, lo que se logra mediante
la estimación del estado relativo entre ambas y el control cooperativo del movimiento.
El objetivo principal de esta Tesis es el desarrollo de una solución práctica para el
aterrizaje autónomo de una aeronave de ala fija en una plataforma móvil. En la tesis se
combinan nuevos métodos con experimentos prácticos para los cuales se ha desarrollado
un sistema de pruebas específico.
Se desarrollan dos variantes diferentes del sistema de aterrizaje. El primero presta atención especial a la seguridad, es robusto ante retrasos en la comunicación entre vehículos y
cumple procedimientos habituales de aterrizaje, al tiempo que reduce la complejidad del
sistema. En el segundo se utilizan trayectorias optimizadas del vehículo y sincronización
bilateral de posición para maximizar el rendimiento del aterrizaje en términos de requerimientos de longitud necesaria de pista, pero la estabilidad es dependiente del retraso de
tiempo, con lo cual es necesario desarrollar un controlador estabilizador ampliado, basado
en pasividad, que permite resolver este problema.
Ambas estrategias imponen requisitos funcionales a los controladores de cada uno de
los vehículos, lo que implica la capacidad de controlar el movimiento longitudinal sin
afectar el control lateral o vertical, y viceversa. El control de vuelo basado en energía se
utiliza para proporcionar dicha funcionalidad a la aeronave.
Los sistemas de aterrizaje desarrollados se han analizado en simulación estableciéndose los límites de rendimiento mediante múltiples repeticiones aleatorias. Se llegó a
la conclusión de que el controlador basado en seguridad proporciona un rendimiento de
aterrizaje satisfactorio al tiempo que suministra una mayor seguridad operativa y un menor
esfuerzo de implementación y certificación. El controlador basado en el rendimiento es
prometedor para aplicaciones con una longitud de pista limitada. Se descubrió que los beneficios del controlador basado en el rendimiento son menos pronunciados para una
dinámica de vehículos terrestres más lenta.
Teniendo en cuenta la dinámica lenta de la configuración del demostrador, se eligió el
enfoque basado en la seguridad para los primeros experimentos de aterrizaje. El sistema
de aterrizaje se validó en diversas pruebas de aterrizaje exitosas, que, a juicio del autor,
son las primeras en el mundo realizadas con aeronaves reales. En última instancia, el
concepto propuesto ofrece importantes beneficios y constituye una estrategia prometedora
para futuras soluciones de aterrizaje de aeronaves.In this thesis a new landing system is proposed, which allows for the operation of
autonomous aircraft without landing gear. The work was motivated by the industrial
need for more capable high altitude aircraft systems, which typically suffer from low
payload capacity and high crosswind landing sensitivity. The approach followed in this
work consists in removing the landing gear system from the aircraft and introducing a
mobile ground-based landing platform. The vehicles must synchronize their motion prior
to landing, which is achieved through relative state estimation and cooperative motion
control. The development of a practical solution for the autonomous landing of an aircraft
on a moving platform thus constitutes the main goal of this thesis. Therefore, theoretical
investigations are combined with real experiments for which a special setup is developed
and implemented.
Two different landing system variants are developed — the safety-based landing system is
robust to inter-vehicle communication delays and adheres to established landing procedures,
while reducing system complexity. The performance-based landing system uses optimized
vehicle trajectories and bilateral position synchronization to maximize landing performance
in terms of used runway, but suffers from time delay-dependent stability. An extended
passivity-based stabilizing controller was implemented to cope with this issue. Both
strategies impose functional requirements on the individual vehicle controllers, which
imply independent controllability of the translational degrees of freedom. Energy-based
flight control is utilized to provide such functionality for the aircraft.
The developed landing systems are analyzed in simulation and performance bounds are
determined by means of repeated random sampling. The safety-based controller was found
to provide satisfactory landing performance while providing higher operational safety,
and lower implementation and certification effort. The performance-based controller
is promising for applications with limited runway length. The performance benefits
were found to be less pronounced for slower ground vehicle dynamics. Given the slow
dynamics of the demonstrator setup, the safety-based approach was chosen for first landing
experiments. The landing system was validated in a number of successful landing trials,
which to the author’s best knowledge was the first time such technology was demonstrated on the given scale, worldwide. Ultimately, the proposed concept offers decisive benefits
and constitutes a promising strategy for future aircraft landing solutions
Expert-in-the-Loop Multilateral Telerobotics for Haptics-Enabled Motor Function and Skills Development
Among medical robotics applications are Robotics-Assisted Mirror Rehabilitation Therapy (RAMRT) and Minimally-Invasive Surgical Training (RAMIST) that extensively rely on motor function development. Haptics-enabled expert-in-the-loop motor function development for such applications is made possible through multilateral telerobotic frameworks. While several studies have validated the benefits of haptic interaction with an expert in motor learning, contradictory results have also been reported. This emphasizes the need for further in-depth studies on the nature of human motor learning through haptic guidance and interaction. The objective of this study was to design and evaluate expert-in-the-loop multilateral telerobotic frameworks with stable and human-safe control loops that enable adaptive “hand-over-hand” haptic guidance for RAMRT and RAMIST.
The first prerequisite for such frameworks is active involvement of the patient or trainee, which requires the closed-loop system to remain stable in the presence of an adaptable time-varying dominance factor. To this end, a wave-variable controller is proposed in this study for conventional trilateral teleoperation systems such that system stability is guaranteed in the presence of a time-varying dominance factor and communication delay. Similar to other wave-variable approaches, the controller is initially developed for the Velocity-force Domain (VD) based on the well-known passivity assumption on the human arm in VD. The controller can be applied straightforwardly to the Position-force Domain (PD), eliminating position-error accumulation and position drift, provided that passivity of the human arm in PD is addressed. However, the latter has been ignored in the literature. Therefore, in this study, passivity of the human arm in PD is investigated using mathematical analysis, experimentation as well as user studies involving 12 participants and 48 trials. The results, in conjunction with the proposed wave-variables, can be used to guarantee closed-loop PD stability of the supervised trilateral teleoperation system in its classical format. The classic dual-user teleoperation architecture does not, however, fully satisfy the requirements for properly imparting motor function (skills) in RAMRT (RAMIST). Consequently, the next part of this study focuses on designing novel supervised trilateral frameworks for providing motor learning in RAMRT and RAMIST, each customized according to the requirements of the application.
The framework proposed for RAMRT includes the following features: a) therapist-in-the-loop mirror therapy; b) haptic feedback to the therapist from the patient side; c) assist-as-needed therapy realized through an adaptive Guidance Virtual Fixture (GVF); and d) real-time task-independent and patient-specific motor-function assessment. Closed-loop stability of the proposed framework is investigated using a combination of the Circle Criterion and the Small-Gain Theorem. The stability analysis addresses the instabilities caused by: a) communication delays between the therapist and the patient, facilitating haptics-enabled tele- or in-home rehabilitation; and b) the integration of the time-varying nonlinear GVF element into the delayed system. The platform is experimentally evaluated on a trilateral rehabilitation setup consisting of two Quanser rehabilitation robots and one Quanser HD2 robot.
The framework proposed for RAMIST includes the following features: a) haptics-enabled expert-in-the-loop surgical training; b) adaptive expertise-oriented training, realized through a Fuzzy Interface System, which actively engages the trainees while providing them with appropriate skills-oriented levels of training; and c) task-independent skills assessment. Closed-loop stability of the architecture is analyzed using the Circle Criterion in the presence and absence of haptic feedback of tool-tissue interactions. In addition to the time-varying elements of the system, the stability analysis approach also addresses communication delays, facilitating tele-surgical training. The platform is implemented on a dual-console surgical setup consisting of the classic da Vinci surgical system (Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA), integrated with the da Vinci Research Kit (dVRK) motor controllers, and the dV-Trainer master console (Mimic Technology Inc., Seattle, WA).
In order to save on the expert\u27s (therapist\u27s) time, dual-console architectures can also be expanded to accommodate simultaneous training (rehabilitation) for multiple trainees (patients). As the first step in doing this, the last part of this thesis focuses on the development of a multi-master/single-slave telerobotic framework, along with controller design and closed-loop stability analysis in the presence of communication delays. Various parts of this study are supported with a number of experimental implementations and evaluations.
The outcomes of this research include multilateral telerobotic testbeds for further studies on the nature of human motor learning and retention through haptic guidance and interaction. They also enable investigation of the impact of communication time delays on supervised haptics-enabled motor function improvement through tele-rehabilitation and mentoring
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