Constrained motion control of flexible robot manipulators based on recurrent neural networks

In this paper, a neural network approach is presented for the motion control of constrained flexible manipulators, where both the contact force everted by the flexible manipulator and the position of the end-effector contacting with a surface are controlled. The dynamic equations for vibration of flexible link and constrained force are derived. The developed control, scheme can adaptively estimate the underlying dynamics of the manipulator using recurrent neural networks (RNNs). Based on the error dynamics of a feedback controller, a learning rule for updating the connection weights of the adaptive RNN model is obtained. Local stability properties of the control system are discussed. Simulation results are elaborated on for both position and force trajectory tracking tasks in the presence of varying parameters and unknown dynamics, which show that the designed controller performs remarkably well.     

基于Matlab机械臂力控系统仿真研究

以位置控制为主的机械臂控制方法已不能满足某些复杂环境（装配、抛光、去毛刺）的应用要求,控制机械臂与环境间的接触力已成为机器人学研究的一个热点。提出一种在Matlab/SimMechanics环境下平面二自由度机械臂力控制的仿真研究方法。在平面中模拟机械臂与环境的接触面,设计振荡抑制控制器,实现机械臂与环境间接触力的控制,以及机械臂与刚性环境碰撞接触过程中冲击振荡阶段的振荡抑制,生成机械臂期望的运动轨迹。仿真结果表明,该方法可实现特定作业下机械臂与环境间接触力的控制。     

失重环境下可控柔性臂的模态特性

在非重力场中,考虑控制器动态反馈的影响,对存在控制器定位约束的柔性臂系统进行动力分析,研 究其在相对平衡位置的模态特性．以具有柔性关节和弹性臂杆的可控柔性臂为研究对象,分析了控制器作用下的反 馈约束特性,将控制器位置和速度增益引入力边界条件,得到了耦合控制器参量的模态特征方程,证明了反馈约束 的存在使得系统特征频率为复频率,且模态主振型是复变函数．通过数值仿真,明确了可控柔性臂的模态特性与控 制器增益之间的关系,得到了不同于经典振动理论的结论．设计了可控柔性臂的仿失重实验平台,试验模态结果证 明了理论分析的有效性．     

Position/vibration control of two-degree-of-freedom arms having one flexible link with artificial pneumatic muscle actuators

A manipulator with a light and thus flexible link would be advantageous over a rigid link in the sense that it is physically safer when it comes into contact with its environment than a manipulator with a rigid and thus heavy link, even though it is harder for a flexible link manipulator to be robustly controlled. On the other hand, if an actuator can deliver enough force while maintaining proper compliance, it would be advantageous for the sake of safety. An artificial pneumatic muscle-type actuator is an adequate choice in this case. In this work, position control problem of a two-degree-of-freedom arm system having a flexible second link with artificial pneumatic muscle-type actuators is addressed. A composite controller design method is proposed in the framework of the singular perturbation method. Various robust control schemes are designed in order to meet with payload variation, parameter uncertainty, unmodeled vibration mode, actuator dynamics both in the slow and the fast subsystems.     

An inverse kinematics algorithm for interaction control of a flexible arm with a compliant surface

This paper deals with the problem of controlling the interaction of a multilink flexible arm in contact with a compliant surface. For a given tip position and surface stiffness, the joint and deflection variables are computed using a closed-loop inverse kinematics algorithm. This is based on a suitable Jacobian matrix which includes terms accounting for the static deflections due to gravity and contact force. The computed variables are used as the set-points for a simple joint PD control, thus achieving regulation of the tip position and contact force via a joint-space controller. The scheme is tested in a simulation case study for a planar two-link manipulator.     

FORCE/POSITION SLIDING-MODE CONTROL OF A ROBOT MANIPULATOR IN A NON-RIGID ENVIRONMENT

This paper proposes a sliding-mode force/position controller for a robot manipulator in contact with an isotropic and homogenous environment with upper-bounded uncertain stiffness. The sliding-mode controller design is based on a contact force model linear with the environment deformation. Measurement of the derivative of the contact force is not needed. The sliding vector is chosen on purpose to enable the system to initially be located in the sliding mode so as to avoid undesired transient behavior.     

On the decoupling of position and force controllers in constrained robotic tasks

In hybrid control of robot manipulators separate controllers are designed for force and position errors control. Controllers are designed either in task or joint space and their outputs combine to provide input torque to the manipulator. Position and force controllers performance in a constrained robotic task is affected by their interaction to a degree dependent on the controller's ability to reject disturbances. Ideally, decoupling of the two control loops is desired to achieve the best performance in position and force directions. In this article, analysis of control loop interactions is performed for contact and noncontact phases, and controller design requirements are developed to achieve maximum decoupling. Design requirements involve output subspace of each controller leading to control discontinuities for contact and noncontact phases. In the noncontact phase, satisfaction of design requirements leads to a fully linearized and decoupled system. When in contact with the constraining surface, design requirements eliminate disturbances in the force loop, but minimize disturbances in the position loop to an extent dependent on force loop performance. Known hybrid control schemes analysis is performed to reveal existence of control loop interactions in these schemes. Confirmation of theoretical analysis is done through simulation of a three revolute planar manipulator. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Position and force tracking of a two‐manipulator system manipulating a flexible beam

This article discusses the issue of hybrid position and force control of a two‐manipulator system manipulating a flexible beam in trajectory tracking. Unlike our previous approach of set‐point position control in the trajectory tracking, the system coordinates are hard to be regulated to the desired states with nonzero tracking velocities under continuous feedback control. In this study, we design a hybrid position and force tracking controller while using saturation control to compensate for the effect of beam vibration dynamics on the tracking performance. All parameters and states used in the controller are readily available so that the proposed method is feasible to implement. Under the proposed controller, the tracking error asymptotically converges to a predetermined boundary. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

接触作业型飞行机械臂系统的力/位置混合控制

针对飞行机械臂系统移动接触作业问题,使用了一个力/位置混合控制框架,用以控制飞行器系统持续可靠地接触外部环境同时保持一定大小的接触力,并实现在接触过程中的期望轨迹跟踪.首先将作业空间分成2个子空间--约束空间和自由空间,并分别进行力控制和位置控制.对于力控制问题,证明闭环无人机系统是一个类弹簧-质量-阻尼系统,然后在约束子空间中设计逆动力学控制器来实现接触力控制.自由飞行空间中的运动控制依靠轨迹规划和位置控制器来实现.最后,开发了基于六旋翼飞行机器人的单自由度飞行机械臂系统,在飞行状态下进行接触墙面并跟踪倾斜直线轨迹的实验.结果显示本文所使用方法能够保证在平稳移动的同时控制期望的接触力.     

QFT-based design of force and contact transition controllers for a flexible link manipulator

This paper deals with the modeling, system identification and robust control of flexible link manipulators that are required to perform contact task operations. For a single flexible link (SFL) manipulator in contact, two infinite dimensional models are developed and dynamic differences with respect to the force sensing devices are examined. Generalized orthonormal basis functions (GOBFs) are adopted for system identification and new algorithms are developed that improve the identification of resonant systems. The identification results, combined with estimated measures of model uncertainties, are directly used in the design of robust controllers. For the contact transition control, a switching condition is proposed based on robust position and force controllers. The stability of the switching controller is examined using a piecewise quadratic Lyapunov approach. Both simulation and experimental results are presented showing the effectiveness of the proposed technique.     

Adaptive fuzzy force control of manipulators with unknown environment parameters

This article proposes an adaptive fuzzy control scheme for explicit force control of a robot manipulator in contact with an environment whose parameters are unknown and vary considerably. The scheme consists of three main components: a reference force model describing the desired behavior of the force control system, a fuzzy force controller that determines the adjustment to the position control loop, and a fuzzy learning and adaptation mechanism that modifies the fuzzy force controller according to the difference between the actual and desired force responses. The modification is performed by shifting and contracting/expanding the membership functions of the fuzzy sets associated with the consequent rules of the fuzzy force controller. It is demonstrated, through simulations of a two-link manipulator and a 6-DOF industrial robot, that the scheme is capable force tracking despite wide parameter variations, such as when the environment stiffness changes by several orders of magnitude. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

受时变约束柔性臂鲁棒RBF神经网络力/位置控制

研究了受时变约束的柔性臂系统，建立了分布参数模型，通过奇异摄动方法将该模型划分为表征系统刚性运动的集中参数子系统和表征系统振动的分布参数子系统．设计了集中参数子系统的鲁棒RBF神经网络力／位置控制算法和分布参数子系统的鲁棒自适应振动抑制控制算法．理论分析及仿真结果验证了该方法的有效性．     

Neural Network Force Control for Industrial Robots

In this paper, we present a hierarchical force control framework consisting of a high level control system based on neural network and the existing motion control system of a manipulator in the low level. Inputs of the neural network are the contact force error and estimated stiffness of the contacted environment. The output of the neural network is the position command for the position controller of industrial robots. A MITSUBISHI MELFA RV-M1 industrial robot equipped with a BL Force/Torque sensor is utilized for implementing the hierarchical neural network force control system. Successful experiments for various contact motions are carried out. Additionally, the proposed neural network force controller together with the master/slave control method are used in dual-industrial robot systems. Successful experiments are carried out for the dual-robot system handling an object.     

Impedance Control with On-Line Neural Network Compensator for Dual-Arm Robots

A controller design strategy of dual-arm robots is proposed in this paper. The controller consists of a central controller and three force controllers. The central controller is used to calculate each arms force command according to the desired object motion. A force controller is used in each arm to track the commanding force. Another force controller is used to track the desired contact force between the manipulated object and its environment. The force controller can be partitioned into three parts. The computed torque method is used to linearize and decouple the dynamics of a manipulator. An impedance controller is then added to regulate the mechanical impedance between the manipulator and its environment. In order to track a reference force signal, an on-line neural network is used to compensate the effect of unknown parameters of the manipulator and environment. The simulation results are reported to show the performance of the neural network compensator.     

Control of constrained manipulators with flexible joints

This paper presents results on control design of constrained manipulators with flexible joints. It will be assumed that such manipulators are under gravity and contact reaction effects. It is also assumed that measurable joint variables are limited to rotor angles and its velocities. A simple biased proportional and derivative feedback controller is shown to be able to drive the manipulator to a desired configuration specified in link angles with desired contact force specified in the direction normal to the constraint surface at the desired position. A sufficient condition for global stability will be established by using a Lyapunov function which is constructed taking into account the spring stiffness, gravity factors and constraint functions. An example is studied and computer simulation results are presented to show closed-loop performance. Editor: M. Corless     

A flexible-arm as manipulator position and force detection unit

This paper presents a self-sensory robot arm to two basic sensing problems in control of flexible manipulators: detection of the position and orientation variations due to structural deformation and detection of the contact force of end-effector when manipulator interacts with its environment. Taking advantage of structural flexibility, a flexible robot arm with strain gauges distributed on it acts as a sensing unit. The position and orientation of flexible arm are expressed as a function of curvature of the arm. An interpolation technique gives this continuous curvature function from a finite set of measurements made with strain gauges. A relation between strain measurements and endpoint force of flexible arm is developed and the contact force of end-effector is then determined using a force propagation algorithm. The proposed technique and algorithm were implemented and evaluated in a laboratorial flexible arm. Experimental validations using a vision system and two force sensors have shown that the self-sensory flexible arm can provide accurate endpoint position and force in both static and dynamic loading situations.     

机器人位置/力控制系统的稳定性

本文通过一个简单的两自由度机器人,分析了 Raibert 和 Craig 提出的位置/力混合控制器的不稳定性问题,提出了力微分反馈控制和在力控制方向引入位置反馈这两种克服不稳定性的方法;在此基础上,对一般机器人提出了一种有效的位置/力控制结构。大量的仿真研究显示了该控制结构的有效性,并给出了关于力控制器设计的一些重要结论.     

Closed‐loop inverse kinematics algorithm for constrained flexible manipulators under gravity

This work deals with the inverse kinematics problem for a flexible robot manipulator under gravity in contact with a stiff surface. This problem consists of finding the joint and deflection variables for a given tip position and constraint force. The solution algorithm is based on the well‐known closed‐loop inverse kinematics (CLIK) scheme, using the Jacobian transpose, developed for rigid manipulators. The Jacobian employed in the algorithm is obtained by correcting the equivalent rigid manipulator Jacobian with two terms that account for the static deflections due to gravity and contact force, respectively. The algorithm is tested in a number of case studies on a planar two‐link arm. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Smart hanger dynamic modeling and fuzzy controller design

The controlled smart hanger is an indispensable component in the automatic system for garment inspection. Fuzzy logic is chosen for the smart hanger manipulator since it can describe the human behavior remarkably well. In this paper, the dynamic model of the manipulator governing the contact force with garment fabric is first developed. An adaptive fuzzy logic PID control scheme is successfully formulated for the contact force control. Simulation results indicate that the fuzzy PID controller can yield a faster response without overshoot and a smaller error performance as compared to the traditional method based on PID. The stability of the fuzzy PID controller is also demonstrated by computer simulations.