Towards a safe and responsive control framework for human-centered robots

Human-centered robots are a specific kind of service robot, which interact with humans physically or cognitively and help humans with tasks in uncertain environments. They can be humanoid robots, exoskeletons, or manipulators and mobile platforms that provide us good services. However, human-centered robots are still not perfect enough for us to use nowadays. On the one hand, human-centered robots are still slow and inefficient for their tasks because the human inputs and dynamics that they react to are uncertain, immeasurable, or even completely unknown. On the other hand, human-centered robots face much more complicated safety requirements than other kinds of robots because humans are dynamic and vulnerable during physical human-robot interaction. To resolve these issues of human-centered robots, the work in this dissertation explores new models for reducing human uncertainty and new control algorithms for improving safety warranty. The first half of this dissertation introduces a complex stiffness model for describing the uncertain human impedance. The discovery of this new model is motivated to explain the observation of a consistent damping ratio of a human versus different environmental dynamics. It replaces the linear damping term in a conventional mass-spring-damping model with a hysteretic damping term, an imaginary value in the frequency domain. Because of the correlation between the stiffness term and the newly discovered hysteretic damping term in the complex stiffness model, we can significantly reduce the human impedance uncertainty. Based on the complex stiffness model, we can adopt nonlinear control strategies for improving the responsiveness and the human-friendliness of human-centered robots. The second half of this dissertation introduces the concept of a barrier pair, which consists of a barrier function and a controller for the safety verification and warranty of a human-centered robot. We obtain a barrier pair by solving an optimization problem subject to a series of linear matrix inequalities representing the state-space, input, and stability constraints of a human-centered robot. By incorporating sampling-based methods into the synthesis of barrier pairs, human-centered robots can guarantee safe operation with non-convex state-space constraints. The sampling-based barrier pair method helps us construct a control framework of human-robot shared autonomy. A human-centered robot in this control framework uses an inference of a human's objective to figure out how to assist the human and prevent the human from potential accidents.Mechanical Engineerin

Robust Estimator-Based Safety Verification: A Vector Norm Approach

In this paper, we consider the problem of verifying safety constraint satisfaction for single-input single-output systems with uncertain transfer function coefficients. We propose a new type of barrier function based on a vector norm. This type of barrier function has a measurable upper bound without full state availability. An identifier-based estimator allows an exact bound for the uncertainty-based component of the barrier function estimate. Assuming that the system is safe initially allows an exponentially decreasing bound on the error due to the estimator transient. Barrier function and estimator synthesis is proposed as two convex sub-problems, exploiting linear matrix inequalities. The barrier function controller combination is then used to construct a safety backup controller. And we demonstrate the system in a simulation of a 1 degree-of-freedom human-exoskeleton interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication at the 2020 American Control Conference. Copyright IEEE 202

BP-RRT: Barrier Pair Synthesis for Temporal Logic Motion Planning

For a nonlinear system (e.g. a robot) with its continuous state space trajectories constrained by a linear temporal logic specification, the synthesis of a low-level controller for mission execution often results in a non-convex optimization problem. We devise a new algorithm to solve this type of non-convex problems by formulating a rapidly-exploring random tree of barrier pairs, with each barrier pair composed of a quadratic barrier function and a full state feedback controller. The proposed method employs a rapid-exploring random tree to deal with the non-convex constraints and uses barrier pairs to fulfill the local convex constraints. As such, the method solves control problems fulfilling the required transitions of an automaton in order to satisfy given linear temporal logic constraints. At the same time it synthesizes locally optimal controllers in order to transition between the regions corresponding to the alphabet of the automaton. We demonstrate this new algorithm on a simulation of a two linkage manipulator robot.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) copyright 2020 IEE

Adaptive Compliance Shaping with Human Impedance Estimation

Human impedance parameters play an integral role in the dynamics of strength amplification exoskeletons. Many methods are used to estimate the stiffness of human muscles, but few are used to improve the performance of strength amplification controllers for these devices. We propose a compliance shaping amplification controller incorporating an accurate online human stiffness estimation from surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors and stretch sensors connected to the forearm and upper arm of the human. These sensor values along with exoskeleton position and velocity are used to train a random forest regression model that accurately predicts a person's stiffness despite varying movement, relaxation, and muscle co-contraction. Our model's accuracy is verified using experimental test data and the model is implemented into the compliance shaping controller. Ultimately we show that the online estimation of stiffness can improve the bandwidth and amplification of the controller while remaining robustly stable.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication at the 2020 American Control Conference. Copyright IEEE 202

Parameter Analysis of Wall Thickness of Cured-in-Place Pipe Linings for Semistructured Rehabilitation of Concrete Drainage Pipe

Frequent accidents caused by underground pipeline damage are a widespread societal concern. Trenchless rehabilitation methods, particularly cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining, are increasingly used for pipeline repair with great success. Existing research is mainly concerned with practical improvements in rehabilitation and evaluating the performance of rehabilitation. In this study, the model of corroded buried concrete pipeline that had been rehabilitated with CIPP was established using numerical methods, and the Mesh-based parallel-Code Coupling Interface (MpCCI) was used to investigate multifield coupling effects of soil pressure, traffic load, and fluid-structure interactions. Moreover, the influences of corrosion depth, corrosion width, traffic load, cover depth, and water quantity on CIPP wall thickness were compared and analyzed. The result shows that maximum principal stress and vertical displacement of pipeline markedly decreased after CIPP rehabilitation, and thus the new CIPP can carry loads in a deteriorated pipe. Stress and displacement of the composite pipe liner were positively correlated with corrosion depth and negatively correlated with corrosion width. Increase in traffic load rapidly increases von Mises stress of CIPP, and increase in cover depth rapidly increases maximum principal stress of pipeline. Water flow has little effect on the pipe liner, and flow capacity increases slightly after CIPP rehabilitation. CIPP wall thickness was positively correlated with corrosion depth, traffic load, cover depth, and water quantity and negatively correlated with corrosion width

Effect of Nitrogen and Phosphorus Distribution in Overlying Water and Sediment of Major Rivers in Changchun City on Water Quality

To explore the existing characteristics of nitrogen and phosphorus in the main rivers of Changchun City, the overlying water and sediment were sampled and tested. The results showed that the spatial distribution of nitrogen and phosphorus contents in overlying water and sediment was diverse. In overlying water, nitrogen and phosphorus contents in the north and west of Changchun were high, while their contents in the south were low. In the sediment, their contents were high in the south and west and low in the north. The pollution of nitrogen and phosphorus was serious in most rivers. Xinkai River, Chuan Lake, and West Lake had the acutest pollution of ammonia, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus, and their contamination degree in Yongchun River was the lowest. In terms of time, with the government actively carrying out river management, the pollution control of ammonia and phosphorus has achieved remarkable results. The pollution of nitrogen and phosphorus was closely related to the quality of the water environment, and the phosphorus content in overlying water and sediment had the strongest correlation with other water quality parameters. Moreover, the change in chemical oxygen demand could be predicted by the partial least squares method on the basis of its high correlation with nitrogen and phosphorus in overlying water. This study provides a scientific reference for the investigation and treatment of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in surface water of typical old industrial cities in China