Passivity‐based control of a magnetically levitated flexible beam

This paper solves the asymptotic stabilization problem for a magnetically levitated flexible beam using a nested‐loop passivity‐based controller design. Passivity analyses reveal that the system can be decomposed into two passive subsystems: a mechanical subsystem that consists of a flexible beam with both ends free and that defines a passive map from external forces to the velocity of the points on the flexible beam at which the external forces act; and an electrical subsystem that consists of a pair of electromagnets and that defines a strictly output‐passive map from voltages applied across the electromagnets to magnetic fluxes. The standard method for designing passivity‐based controllers leads to a nonlinear feed‐forward controller for the electrical subsystem, which enables the electrical subsystem to generate given desired magnetic forces, and an output feedback compensator for the mechanical subsystem, which computes the desired forces required to regulate the position and vibration of the beam. The asymptotic stability of each controller may be proven using Lyapunov's stability theory and LaSalle's invariant set theorem. Numerical simulations confirm the asymptotic stability of the equilibrium configuration of the closed‐loop system formed by the magnetically levitated flexible beam together with the proposed controllers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A semiglobally stable output feedback PI2D regulator forrobot manipulators

Provides an answer to the long-standing question of designing asymptotically stable proportional plus integral regulators with only position feedback for robots with uncertain payload. It has previously been shown in Kelly (1993) and Ailon and Ortega (1993) that globally asymptotically stable set-point regulators for robot manipulators without velocity measurement can be obtained replacing the velocity feedback of a proportional plus derivative controller by a filtered position feedback. In these schemes, the only robot prior information required is the evaluation of the gravity forces at the reference (constant) position. This prior knowledge is used to shape the robot potential energy to have a unique minimum at the desired position. A mismatch in the estimation of the gravity forces leads to a position steady-state error. The authors' main contribution in this paper is to obviate the need of this prior information via the inclusion of two integral terms, around the position error and the filtered position, respectively. Semiglobal stability of the resulting control law is established     

Decentralized sliding mode control for flexible link robots

A technique using augmented sliding mode control for robust, real-time control of flexible multiple link robots is presented. For the purpose of controller design, the n-link, n-joint robot is subdivided into n single joint, single link subsystems. A sliding surface for each subsystem is specified so as to be globally, asymptotically stable. Each sliding surface contains rigid-body angular velocity, angular displacement and flexible body generalized velocities. The flexible body generalized accelerations are treated as disturbances during the controller design. This has the advantage of not requiring explicit equations for the flexible body motion. The result is n single input, single output controllers acting at the n joints of the robot, controlling rigid body angular displacement and providing damping for flexible body modes. Furthermore, the n controllers can be operated in parallel so that compute speed is independent of the number of links, affording real-time, robust, control.     

Planning as incremental adaptation of a reactive system

The importance of solving the problem of integrating deliberative (“planning”) capabilities and reactive capabilities when building robust, ‘real-world’ robot systems is becoming widely accepted (Bresina and Drummond, 1990; Fraichard and Laugier, 1991; McDermott, 1991). This paper presents a solution to this problem: cast planning as the incremental adaptation of a reactive system to suit changes in goals or the environment. Our application domain is a manufacturing problem - robotic kitting. This paper represents an advance on existing work in two ways: It presents and formally examines an architecture that incorporates the benefits of a deliberative component without compromising the reactive component. Secondly, it provides the first set of performance statistics in the literature for this class of system. In our approach, the reactive system (the reactor) is a real-time system that continually interacts with the environment, and the planner is a separate and concurrent system that incrementally ‘tunes’ the behavior of the reactor to ensure that goals are achieved. We call this the planner-reactor approach. The reactor is described using a formal framework for representing flexible robot plans, the model (Lyons, 1990; Lyons and Arbib, 1989). Thus, the behavior of the reactor, and the rules by which the reactor can be modified, become open to mathematical analysis. We employ this to determine the constraints the planner must abide by to make safe adaptations and to ensure that incremental adaptations converge to a desired reactor. We discuss our current implementation of planner and reactor, work through an example from the kitting robot application, and present implementation results.     

Controller synthesis via the 4-polynomial approach

In some recent work it was shown that to stabilize systems with real parameter uncertainty it suffices to find a controller that simultaneously stabilizes a finite number of polynomials. These polynomials include those generated from the ‘vertex’ plants as well as some generated by some ‘fictitious’ vertex plants that involve the controller. This paper deals with the issues of existence of such a controller, controller synthesis, and conservativeness of the design. It is shown how this approach can ‘enhance’ the stability robustness of an H_∞ design.     

Observer‐based H ∞ output tracking control for networked control systems

This paper is concerned with observer‐based H _∞ output tracking control for networked control systems. An observer‐based controller is implemented through a communication network to drive the output of a controlled plant to track the output of a reference model. The inputs of the controlled plant and the observer‐based tracking controller are updated in an asynchronous way because of the effects of network‐induced delays and packet dropouts in the controller‐to‐actuator channel. Taking the asynchronous characteristic into consideration, the resulting closed‐loop system is modeled as a system with two interval time‐varying delays. A Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, which makes use of information about the lower and upper bounds of the interval time‐varying delays, is constructed to derive a delay‐dependent criterion such that the closed‐loop system has a desired H _∞ tracking performance. Notice that a separation principle cannot be used to design an observer gain and a control gain due to the asynchronous inputs of the plant and the controller. Instead, a novel design algorithm is proposed by applying a particle swarm optimization technique with the feasibility of the stability criterion to search for the minimum H _∞ tracking performance and the corresponding gains. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by an example. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymptotic stabilization of the hanging equilibrium manifold of the 3D pendulum

The 3D pendulum consists of a rigid body, supported at a fixed pivot, with three rotational degrees of freedom; it is acted on by gravity and it is fully actuated by control forces. The 3D pendulum has two disjoint equilibrium manifolds, namely a hanging equilibrium manifold and an inverted equilibrium manifold. This paper shows that a controller based on angular velocity feedback can be used to asymptotically stabilize the hanging equilibrium manifold of the 3D pendulum. Lyapunov analysis and nonlinear geometric methods are used to assess the global closed‐loop properties. We explicitly construct compact sets that lie in the domain of attraction of the hanging equilibrium of the closed‐loop. Finally, this controller is shown to achieve almost global asymptotic stability of the hanging equilibrium manifold. An invariant manifold of the closed‐loop that converges to the inverted equilibrium manifold is identified. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Minimum Projection Method for nonsmooth control Lyapunov function design on general manifolds

Asymptotic stabilization on noncontractible manifolds is known as a difficult control problem. On the other hand, an important fact is every control system that is globally asymptotically stabilizable at a desired equilibrium must have nonsmooth control Lyapunov functions.This paper considers the problem of construction of nonsmooth control Lyapunov functions on general manifolds, and we propose a nonsmooth control Lyapunov function design method called the ‘Minimum Projection Method’. The proposed method considers a simple-structured smooth manifold associated with the original manifold by a surjective immersion, and then a control Lyapunov function defined on the simple-structured manifold is projected to the original manifold. A function on the original manifold is thus obtained.In this paper, we prove that the control system on another manifold associated with a surjective immersion is determined uniquely, and the resulting function by the proposed method is a nonsmooth control Lyapunov function on the original manifold. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by examples.     

An addendum on “Robust control of robots by the computed torque method”

We reinterprete and improve recent results on robust control of robots by the computed method. The methods and ideas used are inspired by ‘passivity based’ control methods for robot manipulators and lead to a significant increase in freedom of controller implementation, thereby providing more flexibility to the designer of robot control systems.     

Observer‐based H ∞ control for networked systems with bounded random delays and consecutive packet dropouts

This paper is concerned with the H _∞ control problem for a class of systems with bounded random delays and consecutive packet dropouts that exist in both sensor‐to‐controller channel and controller‐to‐actuator channel during data transmission. A new model is developed to describe possible random delays and packet dropouts by two groups of Bernoulli distributed stochastic variables. To avoid the state augmentation, a full‐order observer‐based feedback controller is designed via LMI approach. Based on the Lyapunov theory, a sufficient condition is provided to guarantee the closed‐loop networked system to be asymptotically mean‐square stable and achieve the prescribed H _∞ disturbance‐rejection‐attenuation level. The simulation examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Global output-feedback path tracking of unicycle-type mobile robots

We present an output-feedback controller that forces the output (position and orientation) of a unicycle-type mobile robot to track a predefined path. A coordinate transformation is first derived to cancel the velocity quadratic terms. An observer is then designed to globally exponentially/asymptotically estimate the unmeasured velocities. The controller synthesis is based on Lyapunov's direct method and the backstepping technique. Our proposed controller works for both internally damped and un-damped cases. Simulations illustrate the soundness of the proposed controller.     

Observer-based event-driven fault-tolerant control for a class of system with state-dependent uncertainties

The method of designing an event-driven observer-based fault-tolerant controller is addressed for a state-dependent system with external disturbance and fault in this paper. An event-driven criterion is proposed to determine the updating of the controller based on the state of the Luenberger-type state-dependent observer. As a result, communication resources can be saved significantly while the desired H_∞ performance is preserved. The observer error closed-loop system is rewritten as a time-varying delay system. By employing a state-dependent integral function to be a Lyapunov function candidate, the error system is proved to be asymptotically stable. The observer gain, the controller gain and the event parameters in the event condition can be co-designed and obtained in terms of solution to a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, a numerical example and the tunnel diode circuit model are shown that the proposed method is effective, and the simulation results can reflect that the event-triggered scheme can lead to a larger release period than time-triggering scheme.     

Tracking control design for a wave equation with dynamic boundary conditions modeling a piezoelectric stack actuator

This paper is concerned with the design of an asymptotically stabilizing tracking controller for an undamped wave equation modeling a piezoelectric stack actuator. For this, flatness‐based methods for trajectory planning and feedforward control are combined with dynamic feedback control involving a Luenberger‐type observer within the two degrees‐of‐freedom control concept. The asymptotic stability of the closed‐loop system is verified using Lyapunov's stability theory and LaSalle's invariance principle. Thereby, a separation theorem is introduced for bounded perturbations of infinitesimal generators of asymptotically stable C₀‐semigroups. Finally, the tracking performance is illustrated in simulation scenarios. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Generalized Vision-based Stiffness Controller for Robot Manipulators with Bounded Inputs

Generally, stiffness and impedance control schemes require knowledge of the location of any object with which a robot interacts within its workspace; therefore, the integration of a computer vision system within the control loop allows us to know the location of the robot end effector and the object (target) simultaneously. In this paper, a generalized and saturating vision-based stiffness controller with adaptive gravity compensation is presented. The proposed control algorithm is designed to regulate robot-environment interaction in task-space, where the contact force is modeled as a vector of generalized bounded spring-like forces. In order to control nonredundant robots, the proposed controller has a nonlinear proportional-derivative structure with static model-based compensation of gravitational forces, as it includes a regressor-based adaptive term. To support the proposal, the Lyapunov stability analysis of the closed-loop equilibrium vector is presented. Finally, the suitable performance of the proposed scheme was verified by numerical simulations and experimental tests.

     

Coordination of multi-agent Euler–Lagrange systems via energy-shaping: Networking improves robustness

In this paper, the robust coordination of multi-agent systems via energy-shaping is studied. The agents are nonidentical, Euler–Lagrange systems with uncertain parameters which are regulated (with and without exchange of information between the agents) by the classical energy-based controller where the potential energy function is shaped such that, if the parameters are known, all agents converge globally to the same desired constant equilibrium. Under parameter uncertainty, the globally asymptotically stable (GAS) equilibrium point is shifted away from its desired value and this paper shows that adding information exchange between the agents to the decentralized control policy improves the steady-state performance. More precisely, it proves that if the undirected communication graph is connected, the equilibrium of the networked controller is always closer (in a suitable metric) to the desired one than that of the decentralized controller. The result holds for all interconnection gains if the potential energy functions are quadratic, else, it is true for sufficiently large gains. An additional advantage of networking is that the asymptotic stabilization objective can be achieved by using lower gains into the loop. Some experimental results (using two nonlinear manipulators) given support to the main results of the paper.     

Learning Control of Robot Manipulators in Task Space

Two important properties of industrial tasks performed by robot manipulators, namely, periodicity (i.e., repetitive nature) of the task and the need for the task to be performed by the end‐effector, motivated this work. Not being able to utilize the robot manipulator dynamics due to uncertainties complicated the control design. In a seemingly novel departure from the existing works in the literature, the tracking problem is formulated in the task space and the control input torque is aimed to decrease the task space tracking error directly without making use of inverse kinematics at the position level. A repetitive learning controller is designed which “learns” the overall uncertainties in the robot manipulator dynamics. The stability of the closed‐loop system and asymptotic end‐effector tracking of a periodic desired trajectory are guaranteed via Lyapunov based analysis methods. Experiments performed on an in‐house developed robot manipulator are presented to illustrate the performance and viability of the proposed controller.     

Predictive pull-based control of an unmanned manufacturing cell, accounting for robot mobility

In order to remove the cell size limitation and to make cellular manufacturing systems more flexible, a manufacturing cell has been equipped with a mobile robot which moves from machine to machine, much like its human counterpart would do. To further acquire a portion of the attributes (intelligence and adaptability of the human worker) lost in robotizing the traditional manned manufacturing cell, a “limited” knowledge-based cell control algorithm is developed. This algorithm maintains standard pull control logic as its underlying basis while utilizing heuristically, knowledge of the ongoing processes and their current status. In this paper, an analysis of this ‘new’ predictive pull-based controller is presented. The simulation results from the predictive pull-based controller are evaluated and compared with the standard pull control logic, first come first serve and shortest distance. A test-bed of an unmanned manufacturing cell with a self-propelled mobile robot was used for experimental verification. Simulation and experimental results show that the degree of improvements gained in the cell performance over the standard pull control method is dependent on the robot’s mobility velocity and how much part inspection/part rejection is performed within the cell. In conclusion, the predictive pull-based algorithm is relatively simple variation of pull control which has the ability of enhancing the “near optimal” pull cell control performance.     

PD control with on-line gravity compensation for robots with elastic joints: Theory and experiments

A proportional-derivative (PD) control with on-line gravity compensation is proposed for regulation tasks of robot manipulators with elastic joints. The work extends a previous PD control with constant gravity compensation at the desired configuration. The control law requires measuring only position and velocity on the motor side of the elastic joints, while the on-line gravity compensation torque uses a biased measure of the motor position. It is proved via a Lyapunov argument that the control law globally asymptotically stabilizes the desired robot configuration. A simulation study on a two-joint arm reveals the better performance that can be obtained with the new scheme as compared to the case of constant gravity compensation. Moreover, the proposed controller is experimentally tested on an eight-joint cable-driven robot manipulator, in combination with a point-to-point interpolating trajectory, showing the practical advantages of the on-line compensation.     

Further constructive results on interconnection and damping assignment control of mechanical systems: the Acrobot example

Interconnection and damping assignment passivity‐based control is a controller design methodology that achieves (asymptotic) stabilization of mechanical systems endowing the closed‐loop system with a Hamiltonian structure with a desired energy function—that qualifies as Lyapunov function for the desired equilibrium. The assignable energy functions are characterized by a set of partial differential equations that must be solved to determine the control law. A class of underactuation degree one systems for which the partial differential equations can be explicitly solved—making the procedure truly constructive—was recently reported by the authors. In this brief note, largely motivated by the interesting Acrobot example, we pursue this investigation for two degrees‐of‐freedom systems where a constant inertia matrix can be assigned. We concentrate then our attention on potential energy shaping and give conditions under which an explicit solution of the associated partial differential equation can be obtained. Using these results we show that it is possible to swing‐up the Acrobot from some configuration positions in the lower half plane, provided some conditions on the robot parameters are satisfied. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

时滞的非完整动力学系统滑模抗干扰跟踪控制

针对具有外部扰动和时滞的非完整轮式移动机器人系统,本文阐述了一种基于非线性扰动观测器的时滞滑模控制方法.首先,利用扰动观测器估计系统的外部扰动;然后,用极坐标转化移动机器人的姿态,并用计算转矩法对机器人的动力学方程进行反馈线性化.设计带时滞控制的滑模,目的是使移动机器人渐近稳定在期望轨迹上,并有效地减小控制增益的过高估计.最后,利用李雅普诺夫函数建立闭环系统的稳定性.仿真结果表明,该方案具有良好的跟踪精度和鲁棒性.