A Multiple Models Approach for Adaptation and Learning in Mobile Robots Control

The paper proposes a multiple models based control methodology for the solution of the tracking problem for mobile robots. The proposed method utilizes multiple models of the robot for its identification in an adaptive and learning control framework. Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFNs) are considered for the multiple models in order to exploit the non-linear approximation capabilities of the nets for modeling the kinematic behaviour of the vehicle and for reducing unmodelled tracking errors contributions. The training of the nets and the control performance analysis have been done in a real experimental setup. The experimental results are satisfactory in terms of tracking errors and computational efforts and show the improvement in the tracking performance when the proposed methodology is used for tracking tasks in dynamical uncertain environments.     

Convergence and robustness of a discrete-time learning control scheme for constrained manipulators

The constrained motion control is one of the most common control tasks found in many industrial robot applications. The nonlinear and nonclassical nature of the dynamic model of constrained robots make designing a controller for accurate tracking of both motion and force a difficult problem. In this article, a discrete-time learning control problem for precise path tracking of motion and force for constrained robots is formulated and solved. The control system is able to reduce the tracking error iteratively in the presence of external disturbances and errors in initial condition as the robot repeats its action. Computer simulation result is presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed learning controller. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

基于遗传算法的欠驱动机器人运动规划

研究了平面欠驱动机器人的非完整运动规划问题,建立欠驱动机器人系统动力学模型,提出了一种利用遗传算法(GA)解决欠驱动机器人运动规划的方法。引入部分稳定控制器的思想,提出基于能量最优的评价函数,利用遗传算法对评价函数进行离线优化,得到有关部分稳定控制器的切换规则。此方法可以推广到任意平面欠驱动机器人的规划问题上,以平面3R欠驱动机器人为研究对象进行了数值仿真,仿真结果验证了该方法的有效性。     

Investigations on the Hybrid Tracking Control of an Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Robot

The problem of trajectory tracking control of an underactuated autonomous underwater robot (AUR) in a three-dimensional (3-D) space is investigated in this paper. The control of an underactuated robot is different from fully actuated robots in many aspects. In particular, these robot systems do not satisfy Brockett's necessary condition for feedback stabilization and no continuous time-invariant state feedback control law exists that makes a specified equilibrium of the closed-loop system asymptotically stable. The uncertainty of hydrodynamic parameters, along with the coupled, nonlinear dynamics of the underwater robot, also makes the navigation and tracking control a difficult task. The proposed hybrid control law is developed by combining sliding mode control (SMC) and classical proportional–integral–derivative (PID) control methods to reduce the tracking errors arising out of disturbances, as well as variations in vehicle parameters like buoyancy. Here, a trajectory planner computes the body-fixed linear and angular velocities, as well as vehicle orientations corresponding to a given 3-D inertial trajectory, which yields a feasible 6-d.o.f. trajectory. This trajectory is used to compute the control signals for the three available controllable inputs by the hybrid controller. A supervisory controller is used to switch between the SMC and PID control as per a predefined switching law. The switching function parameters are optimized using Taguchi design techniques. The effectiveness and performance of the proposed controller is investigated by comparing numerically with classical SMC and traditional linear control systems in the presence of disturbances. Numerical simulations using the full set of nonlinear equations of motion show that the controller does quite well in dealing with the plant nonlinearity and parameter uncertainties for trajectory tracking. The proposed controller response shows less tracking error without the usually present control chattering. Some practical features of this control law are also discussed.     

Learning control of mobile robots using a multiprocessor system

A real-time multiprocessor system is proposed for the solution of the tracking problem of mobile robots operating in a real context with environmental disturbances and parameter uncertainties. The proposed control scheme utilizes multiple models of the robot for its identification in an adaptive and learning control framework. Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFNs) are considered for the multiple models in order to exploit the net non-linear approximation capabilities for modeling the kinematic behavior of the vehicle and for reducing unmodeled contributions to tracking errors. The training of the nets and the tests of the achieved control performance have been done in a real experimental setup. The proposed control architecture improves the robot tracking performance achieving fast and accurate control actions in presence of large and time-varying uncertainties in dynamical environments. The experimental results are satisfactory in terms of tracking errors and computational efforts.     

面向离散地形的欠驱动双足机器人平衡控制方法

欠驱动双足机器人在行走中为保持自身的平衡,双脚需要不间断运动.但在仅有特定立足点的离散地形上很难实现调整后的落脚点,从而导致欠驱动双足机器人在复杂环境中的适应能力下降.提出了基于虚拟约束(Virtual constraint,VC)的变步长调节与控制方法,根据欠驱动双足机器人当前状态与参考落脚点设计了非时变尺度缩放因子,能够实时重构适应当前环境的步态轨迹;同时构建了全身动力学模型,采用反馈线性化的模型预测控制(Model predictive control,MPC)滚动优化产生力矩控制量,实现准确的轨迹跟踪控制.最终进行了欠驱动双足机器人的随机离散地形稳定行走的仿真实验,验证了所提方法的有效性与鲁棒性.     

Asymptotically stable walking for biped robots: analysis viasystems with impulse effects

Biped robots form a subclass of legged or walking robots. The study of mechanical legged motion has been motivated by its potential use as a means of locomotion in rough terrain, as well as its potential benefits to prothesis development and testing. The paper concentrates on issues related to the automatic control of biped robots. More precisely, its primary goal is to contribute a means to prove asymptotically-stable walking in planar, underactuated biped robot models. Since normal walking can be viewed as a periodic solution of the robot model, the method of Poincare sections is the natural means to study asymptotic stability of a walking cycle. However, due to the complexity of the associated dynamic models, this approach has had limited success. The principal contribution of the present work is to show that the control strategy can be designed in a way that greatly simplifies the application of the method of Poincare to a class of biped models, and, in fact, to reduce the stability assessment problem to the calculation of a continuous map from a subinterval of R to itself. The mapping in question is directly computable from a simulation model. The stability analysis is based on a careful formulation of the robot model as a system with impulse effects and the extension of the method of Poincare sections to this class of models     

Neural Approximation-based Model Predictive Tracking Control of Non-holonomic Wheel-legged Robots

This paper proposes a neural approximation based model predictive control approach for tracking control of a nonholonomic wheel-legged robot in complex environments, which features mechanical model uncertainty and unknown disturbances. In order to guarantee the tracking performance of wheel-legged robots in an uncertain environment, effective approaches for reliable tracking control should be investigated with the consideration of the disturbances, including internal-robot friction and external physical interactions in the robot’s dynamical system. In this paper, a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) approximation based model predictive controller (NMPC) is designed and employed to improve the tracking performance for nonholonomic wheel-legged robots. Some demonstrations using a BIT-NAZA robot are performed to illustrate the performance of the proposed hybrid control strategy. The results indicate that the proposed methodology can achieve promising tracking performance in terms of accuracy and stability.

     

Joint-space orthogonalization and passivity for physical interpretations of dextrous robot motions under geometric constraints

A principle of ‘joint-space orthogonalization’ is proposed as an extended notion of hybrid (force and position) control for robot manipulators under geometric constraints. The principle realizes the hybrid control in a strict sense by letting position feedback signals be orthogonal in joint space to the contact force vector whose components exert at corresponding joints. This orthogonalization is executed via a projection matrix computed in real-time from a Jacobian matrix of the constraint equation in joint coordinates. To show the important role of the principle in control of robot manipulators, two basic set-point control problems are analysed. One is a hybrid PID control problem for robot manipulators under geometric endpoint constraint and another is a coordinated control problem of two arms. It is shown that passivity properties of residual dynamics of robots follow from the introduction of a quasi-natural potential and the joint-space orthogonalization. Various stability problems of PID-type feedback control schemes without compensating for the gravity force and with or without use of a force sensor are discussed from passivity properties of robot dynamics with the aid of the hyper-stability theory.     

Cartesian control of redundant robots

This article presents a Cartesian-space position/force controller for redundant robots. The proposed control structure partitions the control problem into a nonredundant position/force trajectory tracking problem and a redundant mapping problem between Cartesian control input F ? R ^m and robot actuator torque T ? R ⁿ(for redundant robots, m < n). The underdetermined nature of the F → T map is exploited so that the robot redundancy is utilized to improve the dynamic response of the robot. This dynamically optimal F → T map is implemented locally (in time) so that it is computationally efficient for on-line control; however, it is shown that the map possesses globally optimal characteristics. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the dynamically optimal F→T map can be modified so that the robot redundancy is used to simultaneously improve the dynamic response and realize any specified kinematic performance objective (e.g., manipulability maximization or obstacle avoidance). Computer simulation results are given for a four degree of freedom planar redundant robot under Cartesian control, and demonstrate that position/force trajectory tracking and effective redundancy utilization can be achieved simultaneously with the proposed controller.     

Robust formation tracking control of mobile robots via one-to-one time-varying communication

We solve the formation tracking control problem for mobile robots via linear control, under the assumption that each agent communicates only with one ‘leader’ robot and with one follower, hence forming a spanning-tree topology. We assume that the communication may be interrupted on intervals of time. As in the classical tracking control problem for non-holonomic systems, the swarm is driven by a fictitious robot which moves about freely and which is a leader to one robot only. Our control approach is decentralised and the control laws are linear with time-varying gains; in particular, this accounts for the case when position measurements may be lost over intervals of time. For both velocity-controlled and force-controlled systems, we establish uniform global exponential stability, hence consensus formation tracking, for the error system under a condition of persistency of excitation on the reference angular velocity of the virtual leader and on the control gains.     

带有未知参数和有界干扰的移动机器人轨迹跟踪控

针对模型参数未知和存在有界干扰的非完整移动机器人的轨迹跟踪控制问题,本文提出了一种鲁棒自适应轨迹跟踪控制器方法.非完整移动机器人的控制难点在于它的运动学系统是欠驱动的.针对这一难点,本文利用横截函数的思想,引入新的辅助控制器,使得非完整移动机器人系统不再是一个欠驱动系统,缩减了控制器设计的难度,进而利用非线性自适应算法和参数映射方法构造李雅谱诺夫函数.通过李雅普诺夫方法设计控制器和参数自适应器,从而使得非完整移动机器人的跟随误差任意小,即可以任意小的误差来跟随任意给定的参考轨迹.仿真结果证明了方法的有效性.     

From Trajectory Tracking Control to Leader–Follower Formation Control

Abstract

This work investigates the leader–follower formation control of multiple nonholonomic mobile robots. First, the formation control problem is converted into a trajectory tracking problem and a tracking controller based on the dynamic feedback linearization technique drives each follower robot toward its corresponding reference trajectory in order to achieve the formation. The desired orientation for each follower is selected such that the nonholonomic constraint of the robot is respected, and thus the tracking of the reference trajectory for each follower is feasible. An adaptive dynamic controller that considers the actuators dynamics in the design procedure is proposed. The dynamic model of the robots includes the actuators dynamics in order to obtain the velocities as control inputs instead of torques or voltages. Using Lyapunov control theory, the tracking errors are proven to be asymptotically stable and the formation is achieved despite the uncertainty of the dynamic model parameters. In order to assess the proposed control laws, a ROS-framework is developed to conduct real experiments using four ROS-enabled mobile robots TURTLEBOTs. Moreover, the leader fault problem, which is considered as the main drawback of the leader–follower approach, is solved under ROS. An experiment is conducted where in order to overcome this problem, the desired formation and the leader role are modified dynamically during the experiment.     

仿生机器人运动步态控制:强化学习方法综述

仿生机器人是一类典型的多关节非线性欠驱动系统，其步态控制是一个非常具有挑战性的问题。对于该问题，传统的控制和规划方法需要针对具体的运动任务进行专门设计，需要耗费大量时间和精力，而且所设计出来的控制器往往没有通用性。基于数据驱动的强化学习方法能对不同的任务进行自主学习，且对不同的机器人和运动任务具有良好的通用性。因此，近年来这种基于强化学习的方法在仿生机器人运动步态控制方面获得了不少应用。针对这方面的研究，本文从问题形式化、策略表示方法和策略学习方法3个方面对现有的研究情况进行了分析和总结，总结了强化学习应用于仿生机器人步态控制中尚待解决的问题，并指出了后续的发展方向。     

基于深度学习的移动机器人目标跟踪系统

针对当前智能移动机器人在跟踪过程中常因目标发生外观形态上的变化而丢失跟踪目标的问题,利用Caffe深度学习框架和ROS机器人操作系统作为开发平台,设计一个高准确度及高实时性的移动机器人目标跟踪系统并进行了研究.使用对于目标形变、视角、轻微遮挡及光照变化具有鲁棒性的基于孪生卷积神经网络的GOTURN目标跟踪算法,通过ROS系统为桥梁使离线训练的跟踪模型实时应用于TurtleBot移动机器人上,并开展了详细的测试.实验结果表明,该目标跟踪系统不仅设计方案可行,实现了移动机器人在各种复杂场景下有效地跟踪目标,还具有成本低、性能高和易扩展等特点.     

考虑运动受限的履带式移动机器人轨迹跟踪控制

针对履带式移动机器人的轨迹跟踪控制问题进行研究,首先,建立了履带式移动机器人的运动学模型和跟踪误差模型;其次,设计了转速有限时间控制和线速度滑模控制的轨迹跟踪控制律,并给出了考虑运动受限作用下的控制律修正表达式;最后,基于MATLAB对所提控制律进行仿真,对比分析了不考虑运动受限情况下跟踪控制效果;结果表明,设计的跟踪控制律能够实现履带式移动机器人对圆轨迹的有效跟踪,且考虑运动受限作用的控制律更加符合实际;文章研究分析了运动受限作用对于移动机器人轨迹跟踪控制的影响,分析结果对其他移动机器人的运动控制研究具有参考价值。     

Autonomous stair-climbing with miniature jumping robots.

The problem of vision-guided control of miniature mobile robots is investigated. Untethered mobile robots with small physical dimensions of around 10 cm or less do not permit powerful onboard computers because of size and power constraints. These challenges have, in the past, reduced the functionality of such devices to that of a complex remote control vehicle with fancy sensors. With the help of a computationally more powerful entity such as a larger companion robot, the control loop can be closed. Using the miniature robot's video transmission or that of an observer to localize it in the world, control commands can be computed and relayed to the inept robot. The result is a system that exhibits autonomous capabilities. The framework presented here solves the problem of climbing stairs with the miniature Scout robot. The robot's unique locomotion mode, the jump, is employed to hop one step at a time. Methods for externally tracking the Scout are developed. A large number of real-world experiments are conducted and the results discussed.     

Software toolkit for modeling,simulation, and control of soft robots

The technological differences between traditional robotics and soft robotics have an impact on all of the modeling tools generally in use, including direct kinematics and inverse models, Jacobians, and dynamics. Due to the lack of precise modeling and control methods for soft robots, the promising concepts of using such design for complex applications (medicine, assistance, domestic robotics, etc.) cannot be practically implemented. This paper presents a first unified software framework dedicated to modeling, simulation, and control of soft robots. The framework relies on continuum mechanics for modeling the robotic parts and boundary conditions like actuators and contacts using a unified representation based on Lagrange multipliers. It enables the digital robot to be simulated in its environment using a direct model. The model can also be inverted online using an optimization-based method which allows to control the physical robots in the task space. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, we present various soft robots scenarios including ones where the robot is interacting with its environment. The software has been built on top of SOFA, an open-source framework for deformable online simulation and is available at https://project.inria.fr/softrobot/.     

一类非完整移动机器人编队控制方法

针对大部分两轮非完整移动机器人轮轴中心与几何中心不重合的特点, 提出一种多机器人协调编队控制算法. 构造队形参数矩阵确定编队形状, 根据领航机器人和相关队形参数生成虚拟机器人, 把编队控制分解为跟随机器人对虚拟机器人的轨迹跟踪. 建立虚拟机器人与跟随机器人之间误差系统模型, 利用Lyapunov 理论设计相应控制器, 从而实现队形保持和变换. 应用microsoft robotics developer studio 4(MRDS4) 搭建3D 仿真平台, 设计3 组实验, 结果进一步验证了所提出方法的有效性.

     

A geometric approach to target convergence and obstacle avoidance of a nonstandard tractor‐trailer robot

In this article, a solution to target convergence and obstacle avoidance problem of an underactuated nonstandard n‐trailer robot is proposed. With a new geometric approach, we propose autonomous velocity and steering angle controllers for the car‐like tractor robot such that the tractor‐trailer system moves from an initial position to a designated target. The proposed method simultaneously takes into account the dynamics constraints of the system and also ensures that the robot avoids any fixed obstacles on its way to the target. We also generalize the results to control the motion of the nonstandard n‐trailer system with an arbitrary number of passive trailers, a mathematically challenging nonlinear underactuated system, given that the angular velocity of a trailer is dependent on the angular velocity of the preceding trailer. The effectiveness of the new geometric approach and the stabilizing control inputs is verified using computer simulations.