A Survey on Domain-Specific Modeling and Languages in Robotics

Nordmann A, Hochgeschwender N, Wigand DL, Wrede S. A Survey on Domain-Specific Modeling and Languages in Robotics. Journal of Software Engineering in Robotics. 2016;7(1):75-99

Domain-Specific Language Modularization Scheme Applied to a Multi-Arm Robotics Use-Case

Wigand DL, Nordmann A, Dehio N, Mistry M, Wrede S. Domain-Specific Language Modularization Scheme Applied to a Multi-Arm Robotics Use-Case. Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics. 2017;8(1):45-64

Modeling and Control of Multi-Arm and Multi-Leg Robots: Compensating for Object Dynamics during Grasping

Dehio N, Smith J, Wigand DL, et al. Modeling & Control of Multi-Arm and Multi-Leg Robots: Compensating for Object Dynamics during Grasping. In: IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation. 2018

Modeling robot control systems in compliant interaction with the environment. Bridging the gap between the envisioned task and the robot’s behavior

Wigand DL. Modeling robot control systems in compliant interaction with the environment. Bridging the gap between the envisioned task and the robot’s behavior. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2022.In recent years, robotics applications increasingly rely on physically compliant interaction, which entails the deliberate compensation and exploitation of contact forces. Explicitly considering the compliant interaction between the robot and the environment is essential for successful and safe task execution in contact-rich applications: e.g., snap-fitting electrical clamps, relying on the environment for support (e.g., using a hand-rail), and accommodating for soft materials (e.g., in soft tissue surgery). Developing robotic systems for such applications, requires not only suitable control algorithms, but also a task description that formalizes the compliant interaction as well as other relevant system concerns (e.g., timing). Skill-based approaches are commonly used to create such systems. However, they usually neglect the compliant interaction almost entirely and introduce hidden assumptions for other relevant concerns. This causes a significant gap between the envisioned task and the resulting robot’s behavior in terms of explainability and predictability. To close the gap, this thesis introduces suitable abstractions to model the compliant interaction in the context of a task description as constraints on the robot’s behavior. The constraints are based on the physical exchange of forces via (natural) contacts. Using the developed synthesis, the modeled task constraints for compliant interaction are directly transferred into a control system model that uses the Projected Inverse Dynamics Control formalism. A modularization and composition approach for domain-specific languages is developed to combine the resulting control system model with relevant functional and non-functional robotics concerns, such as the specification of the execution time behavior, which are essential to produce a predictable behavior. The implementation of the conceptual approach allows the modeling of compliant interaction tasks, the synthesis of a suitable robot control system, and the generation of a real-time software system that can be executed in simulation as well as on the real robot. Together, this significantly reduces the aforementioned gap and ensures a behavior that conforms to the modeled task and timing constraints. Using the developed approach three relevant compliant interaction scenarios from the domains of human-robot interaction and industrial assembly are modeled and executed. The scenarios show the eligibility of the introduced concepts and their ability to scale to different compliant interactions

Model-Driven Scheduling of Real-Time Tasks for Robotics Systems

Wigand DL, Wrede S. Model-Driven Scheduling of Real-Time Tasks for Robotics Systems. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2019

Model-Based Specification of Control Architectures for Compliant Interaction with the Environment

Wigand DL, Dehio N, Wrede S. Model-Based Specification of Control Architectures for Compliant Interaction with the Environment. In: Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2020). 2020

Modularization of Domain-Specific Languages for Extensible Component-Based Robotic Systems

Wigand DL, Nordmann A, Goerlich M, Wrede S. Modularization of Domain-Specific Languages for Extensible Component-Based Robotic Systems. In: Proceedings of the First IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing. 2017

Model-Based Performance Testing for Robotics Software Components

Wienke J, Wigand DL, Köster N, Wrede S. Model-Based Performance Testing for Robotics Software Components. In: Second IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing. IEEE; 2018

Enabling Impedance-based Physical Human-Multi-Robot Collaboration: Experiments with four torque-controlled Manipulators

Dehio N, Smith J, Wigand DL, Mohammadi P, Mistry M, Steil JJ. Enabling Impedance-based Physical Human-Multi-Robot Collaboration: Experiments with four torque-controlled Manipulators. International Journal of Robotics Research. 2021;41(1):68-84.Robotics research into multi-robot systems so far has concentrated on implementing intelligent swarm behavior and contact-less human interaction. Studies of haptic or physical human-robot interaction, by contrast, have primarily focused on the assistance offered by a single robot. Consequently, our understanding of the physical interaction and the implicit communication through contact forces between a human and a team of multiple collaborative robots is limited. We here introduce the term Physical Human Multi-Robot Collaboration (PHMRC) to describe this more complex situation, which we consider highly relevant in future service robotics. The scenario discussed in this article covers multiple manipulators in close proximity and coupled through physical contacts. We represent this set of robots as fingers of an up-scaled agile robot hand. This perspective enables us to employ model-based grasping theory to deal with multi-contact situations. Our torque-control approach integrates dexterous multi-manipulator grasping skills, optimization of contact forces, compensation of object dynamics, and advanced impedance regulation into a coherent compliant control scheme. For this to achieve, we contribute fundamental theoretical improvements. Finally, experiments with up to four collaborative KUKA LWR IV+ manipulators performed both in simulation and real world validate the model-based control approach. As a side effect, we notice that our multi-manipulator control framework applies identically to multi-legged systems, and we execute it also on the quadruped ANYmal subject to non-coplanar contacts and human interaction

Real-time Control of Whole-body Robot Motion and Trajectory Generation for Physiotherapeutic Juggling in VR

Mohammadi P, Malekzadeh M, Kodl J, et al. Real-time Control of Whole-body Robot Motion and Trajectory Generation for Physiotherapeutic Juggling in VR. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE; 2018