Studies on Trajectory Tracking of Two Link Planar Manipulator

In robotic manipulator control situations, high accuracy trajectory tracking is one of the challenging aspects. This is due to nonlinearities in dynamics and input coupling present in the robotic arm. In the present work, a two link planar manipulator revolving in a horizontal plane is considered. Its kinematics, Jacobian analysis, dynamic equations are obtained from modelling. It is proposed to use this manipulator for following a desired trajectory by using an effective control method. Initially, computed torque control scheme is used to obtain the end effector motions. The dynamic equations are solved by numerical method and the joint space results are used to obtain the error and its derivative. This linearized error dynamic control uses constant gains and an attempt is made to obtain a correct set of gains in each error cycle to refine the control performance. A scaled prototype is made with aluminium links and joint servos. A mechatronic system with an arduino microcontroller board is employed to drive the servos in incremental fashion as per the tracking point and its inverse kinematics. The computer results are shown for two trajectories namely a straight line and spline. The errors are reported as a function of time and the corresponding joint torques computed in each time step are plotted. Finally to illustrate the mechatronic control system on the prototype, a path containing three points is considered and corresponding errors and repeatability are presented

Chlorophyll fluorescence emission spectrum inside a leaf

Chlorophyll a fluorescence can be used as an early stress indicator. Fluorescence is also connected to photosynthesis so it can be proposed for global monitoring of vegetation status from a satellite platform. Nevertheless, the correct interpretation of fluorescence requires accurate physical models. The spectral shape of the leaf fluorescence free of any re-absorption effect plays a key role in the models and is difficult to measure. We present a vegetation fluorescence emission spectrum free of re-absorption based on a combination of measurements and modelling. The suggested spectrum takes into account the photosystem I and II spectra and their relative contribution to fluorescence. This emission spectrum is applicable to describe vegetation fluorescence in biospectroscopy and remote sensing