Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 183

This bibliography lists 273 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in July 1978

Human-friendly robotic manipulators: safety and performance issues in controller design

Recent advances in robotics have spurred its adoption into new application areas such as medical, rescue, transportation, logistics, personal care and entertainment. In the personal care domain, robots are expected to operate in human-present environments and provide non-critical assistance. Successful and flourishing deployment of such robots present different opportunities as well as challenges. Under a national research project, Bobbie, this dissertation analyzes challenges associated with these robots and proposes solutions for identified problems. The thesis begins by highlighting the important safety concern and presenting a comprehensive overview of safety issues in a typical domestic robot system. By using functional safety concept, the overall safety of the complex robotic system was analyzed through subsystem level safety issues. Safety regions in the world model of the perception subsystem, dependable understanding of the unstructured environment via fusion of sensory subsystems, lightweight and compliant design of mechanical components, passivity based control system and quantitative metrics used to assert safety are some important points discussed in the safety review. The main research focus of this work is on controller design of robotic manipulators against two conflicting requirements: motion performance and safety. Human-friendly manipulators used on domestic robots exhibit a lightweight design and demand a stable operation with a compliant behavior injected via a passivity based impedance controller. Effective motion based manipulation using such a controller requires a highly stiff behavior while important safety requirements are achieved with compliant behaviors. On the basis of this intuitive observation, this research identifies suitable metrics to identify the appropriate impedance for a given performance and safety requirement. This thesis also introduces a domestic robot design that adopts a modular design approach to minimize complexity, cost and development time. On the basis of functional modularity concept where each module has a unique functional contribution in the system, the robot “Bobbie-UT‿ is built as an interconnection of interchangeable mobile platform, torso, robotic arm and humanoid head components. Implementation of necessary functional and safety requirements, design of interfaces and development of suitable software architecture are also discussed with the design

Aerospace medicine and biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 206, May 1980

This bibliography lists 169 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1980

Suppress vibration on robotic polishing with impedance matching

Installing force-controlled end-effectors on the end of industrial robots has become the mainstream method for robot force control. Additionally, during the polishing process, contact force stability has an important impact on polishing quality. However, due to the difference between the robot structure and the force-controlled end-effector, in the polishing operation, direct force control will have impact during the transition from noncontact to contact between the tool and the workpiece. Although impedance control can solve this problem, industrial robots still produce vibrations with high inertia and low stiffness. Therefore, this research proposes an impedance matching control strategy based on traditional direct force control and impedance control methods to improve this problem. This method's primary purpose is to avoid force vibration in the contact phase and maintain force-tracking performance during the dynamic tracking phase. Simulation and experimental results show that this method can smoothly track the contact force and reduce vibration compared with traditional force control and impedance control

The Soft Landing Problem: Minimizing Energy Loss by a Legged Robot Impacting Yielding Terrain

Enabling robots to walk and run on yielding terrain is increasingly vital to endeavors ranging from disaster response to extraterrestrial exploration. While dynamic legged locomotion on rigid ground is challenging enough, yielding terrain presents additional challenges such as permanent ground deformation which dissipates energy. In this paper, we examine the soft landing problem: given some impact momentum, bring the robot to rest while minimizing foot penetration depth. To gain insight into properties of penetration depth-minimizing control policies, we formulate a constrained optimal control problem and obtain a bang-bang open-loop force profile. Motivated by examples from biology and recent advances in legged robotics, we also examine impedance-control solutions to the dimensionless soft landing problem. Through simulations, we find that optimal impedance reduces penetration depth nearly as much as the open-loop force profile, while remaining robust to model uncertainty. Through simulations and experiments, we find that the solution space is rich, exhibiting qualitatively different relationships between impact velocity and the optimal impedance for small and large dimensionless impact velocities. Lastly, we discuss the relevance of this work to minimum-cost-of-transport locomotion for several actuator design choices

Effects of Dynamic Model Errors in Task-Priority Operational Space Control

Control algorithms of many Degrees Of Freedom (DOFs) systems based on Inverse Kinematics or Inverse Dynamics approaches are two well-known topics of research in robotics. The large number of DOFs allows the design of many concurrent tasks arranged in priorities, that can be solved either at kinematic or dynamic level. This paper investigates the effects of modeling errors in operational space control algorithms with respect to uncertainties affecting knowledge of the dynamic parameters. The effects on the null-space projections and the sources of steady-state errors are investigated. Numerical simulations with on-purpose injected errors are used to validate the thoughts

Dynamic primitives of motor behavior

We present in outline a theory of sensorimotor control based on dynamic primitives, which we define as attractors. To account for the broad class of human interactive behaviors—especially tool use—we propose three distinct primitives: submovements, oscillations, and mechanical impedances, the latter necessary for interaction with objects. Owing to the fundamental features of the neuromuscular system—most notably, its slow response—we argue that encoding in terms of parameterized primitives may be an essential simplification required for learning, performance, and retention of complex skills. Primitives may simultaneously and sequentially be combined to produce observable forces and motions. This may be achieved by defining a virtual trajectory composed of submovements and/or oscillations interacting with impedances. Identifying primitives requires care: in principle, overlapping submovements would be sufficient to compose all observed movements but biological evidence shows that oscillations are a distinct primitive. Conversely, we suggest that kinematic synergies, frequently discussed as primitives of complex actions, may be an emergent consequence of neuromuscular impedance. To illustrate how these dynamic primitives may account for complex actions, we brieflyreviewthree typesof interactivebehaviors: constrained motion, impact tasks, and manipulation of dynamic objects.United States. National Institutes of Health (T32GM008334)American Heart Association (11SDG7270001)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF DMS-0928587

Integrated Optimal Design of a Passive Wind Turbine System: An Experimental Validation

This work presents design and experimentation of a full passive wind turbine system without active electronic part(power and control). The efficiency of such device can be obtained only if the system design parameters are mutually adapted through an Integrated Optimal Design (IOD) method. This approach based on multiobjective optimization, aims at concurrently optimizing the wind power extraction and the global system losses for a given wind speed profile while reducing the weight of the wind turbine generator. It allows us to obtain the main characteristics (geometric and energetic features) of the optimal Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) for the passive wind turbine. Finally, experiments on the PMSG prototype built from this work show a good agreement with theoretical predictions. This validates the design approach and confirms the effectiveness of such passive device

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, 1989, volume 1

The 1989 Johnson Space Center (JSC) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program was conducted by Texas A and M University and JSC. The 10-week program was operated under the auspices of the ASEE. The program at JSC, as well as the programs at other NASA Centers, was funded by the Office of University Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. The objectives of the program, which began nationally in 1964 and at JSC in 1965, are: (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to stimulate an exchange of ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of participants' institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objective of the NASA Centers