Asymptotically Stable Walking of a Five-Link Underactuated 3-D Bipedal Robot

This paper presents three feedback controllers that achieve an asymptotically stable, periodic, and fast walking gait for a 3-D bipedal robot consisting of a torso, revolute knees, and passive (unactuated) point feet. The walking surface is assumed to be rigid and flat; the contact between the robot and the walking surface is assumed to inhibit yaw rotation. The studied robot has 8 DOF in the single support phase and six actuators. In addition to the reduced number of actuators, the interest of studying robots with point feet is that the feedback control solution must explicitly account for the robot's natural dynamics in order to achieve balance while walking. We use an extension of the method of virtual constraints and hybrid zero dynamics (HZD), a very successful method for planar bipeds, in order to simultaneously compute a periodic orbit and an autonomous feedback controller that realizes the orbit, for a 3-D (spatial) bipedal walking robot. This method allows the computations for the controller design and the periodic orbit to be carried out on a 2-DOF subsystem of the 8-DOF robot model. The stability of the walking gait under closed-loop control is evaluated with the linearization of the restricted PoincarÉ map of the HZD. Most periodic walking gaits for this robot are unstable when the controlled outputs are selected to be the actuated coordinates. Three strategies are explored to produce stable walking. The first strategy consists of imposing a stability condition during the search of a periodic gait by optimization. The second strategy uses an event-based controller to modify the eigenvalues of the (linearized) PoincarÉ map. In the third approach, the effect of output selection on the zero dynamics is discussed and a pertinent choice of outputs is proposed, leading to stabilization without the use of a supplemental event-based controller.      

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.     

Modeling and inverse adaptive control of asymmetric hysteresis systems with applications to magnetostrictive actuator

When uncertain systems are actuated by smart material based actuators, the systems exhibit hysteresis nonlinearities and corresponding control is becoming a challenging task, especially with magnetostrictive actuators which are dominated by asymmetric hystereses. The common approach for overcoming the hysteresis effect is inverse compensation combining with robust adaptive control. Focusing on the asymmetric hysteresis phenomenon, an asymmetric shifted Prandtl–Ishlinskii (ASPI) model and its inverse are developed and a corresponding analytical expression for the inverse compensation error is derived. Then, a prescribed adaptive control method is applied to mitigate the compensation error and simultaneously guaranteeing global stability of the closed loop system with a prescribed transient and steady-state performance of the tracking error without knowledge of system parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is validated on a magnetostrictive actuated platform.     

Direct adaptive control of robotic systems

This paper presents a new approach to adaptive motion control of an important class of robotic systems. The control schemes developed using this approach are very simple and computationally efficient since they do not require knowledge of either the mathematical model or the parameter values of the robotic system dynamics. It is shown that the control strategies are globally stable in the presence of bounded disturbances, and that the size of the tracking errors can be made arbitrarily small. The proposed controllers are very general and are implementable with a wide variety of robotic systems, including both open- and closed-kinematic-chain manipulators. Computer simulation results are given for a seven degree-of-freedom (DOF) Robotics Research Corporation Model K-1607 arm. These results demonstrate that accurate and robust trajectory tracking can be achieved by using the proposed schemes.     

Hybrid force and motion control of flexible joint parallel manipulators using inverse dynamics approach

An inverse dynamics control algorithm is developed for hybrid motion and contact force trajectory tracking control of flexible joint parallel manipulators. First, an open-tree structure is considered by the disconnection of adequate number of unactuated joints. The loop closure constraint equations are then included. Elimination of the joint reaction forces and the other intermediate variables yield a fourth-order relation between the actuator torques and the end-effector position and contact force variables, showing that the control torques do not have an instantaneous effect on the end-effector contact forces and accelerations because of the flexibility. The proposed control law provides simultaneous and asymptotically stable control of the end-effector contact forces and the motion along the constraint surfaces by utilizing the feedback of positions and velocities of the actuated joints and rotors. A two degree of freedom planar parallel manipulator is considered as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.     

基于神经网络观测器的船舶轨迹跟踪递归滑模 动态面输出反馈控制

针对三自由度全驱动船舶速度向量不可测问题,考虑船舶模型参数和外部环境扰动均未知的情况,提出一种基于神经网络观测器的船舶轨迹跟踪递归滑模动态面输出反馈控制方法.该方法设计神经网络自适应观测器估计船舶速度向量,且利用神经网络逼近模型参数不确定项,综合考虑船舶位置和速度误差之间关系构造递归滑模面,再采用动态面控制技术设计轨迹跟踪控制律和参数自适应律,并引入低频增益学习方法消除外界扰动导致的高频振荡控制信号.选取李雅普诺夫函数证明了该控制律能够保证轨迹跟踪闭环系统内所有信号的一致最终有界性.最后,基于一艘供给船进行仿真验证,结果表明,船舶轨迹跟踪响应速度快,所设计控制器对系统模型参数摄动及外界扰动具有较强的鲁棒性.     

含有非驱动关节机器人的学习控制

含有非驱动关节的机器人的运动控制比一般的机器人要困难得多．因为非驱动关节 不能直接控制，系统属于非完全可控系统，一般的光滑反馈控制方法对这样的系统是无效的 ．本文提出了一种学习控制的方法，通过学习获得高精度的前馈控制，实现欠驱动机器人的 高精度运动控制，并在一台实际的欠驱动机器人上进行了实验，给出了实验结果．     

Trajectory Control of a Quadrotor Subject to 2D Wind Disturbances

The paper addresses the flight control of a quad-rotor subject to two dimensional unknown static/varying wind disturbances. A model separation is proposed to simplify the control of the six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) nonlinear dynamics of the flying robot. Such approach allows to deal with quad-rotor’s 3D-motion via two subsystems: dynamic (altitude and MAV-relative forward velocity) and kinematic (nonholonomic-like navigation) subsystems. In terms of control, a hierarchical control is used as the overall control structure to stabilize the kinematic underactuaded subsystem. A control strategy based on sliding-mode and adaptive control techniques is proposed to deal with slow and fast time-varying wind conditions, respectively. This choice not only provides well tracking control but also improves the estimation of unknown disturbance. The backstepping technique is used to stabilize the inner-loop heading dynamics, such recursive design takes into account a constrained heading rate. Promising simulations results show the validity of the proposed control strategy while tracking a time-parameterized straight-line and sinusoidal trajectory.     

超磁致伸缩作动器的率相关Hammerstein模型与H∞鲁棒跟踪控制

利用Hammerstein模型对超磁致伸缩作动器（Giant magnetostrictive actuators,GMA）的率相关迟滞非线性进行建模,分别以改进的 Prandtl-Ishlinskii（Modified Prandtl-Ishlinskii）模型和外因输入自回归模型（Autoregressive model with exogenous input,ARX）代表Hammerstein模型中的静态非线性部分和线性动态部分,并给出了模型的辨识方法. 此模型能在1～100Hz频率范围内较好地描述GMA的率相关迟滞非线性. 提出了带有逆补偿器和H∞鲁棒控制器的二自由度跟踪控制策略,实时跟踪控制实验结果证明了所提策略的有效性.     

Intelligent trajectory tracking of an aircraft in the presence of internal and external disturbances

This research deals with developing an intelligent trajectory tracking control approach for an aircraft in the presence of internal and external disturbances. Internal disturbances including actuators faults, unmodeled dynamics, and model uncertainties as well as the external disturbances such as wind turbulence significantly affect the performance of the common trajectory tracking control approaches. There are several fault‐tolerant control approaches in the literature to overcome the effects of specific actuator or sensor faults during the flight. However, trajectory tracking control of an air vehicle in the presence of unexpected faults and simultaneous presence of wind turbulence is still a challenging problem. In this paper, an intelligent neural network‐based model predictive control structure is proposed, where the prediction model is updated in each iteration based on a novel proposed online sequential multimodel structure. A hybrid offline‐online learning algorithm is adopted in the introduced online sequential multimodel structure to identify the time‐varying dynamics of the system. The proposed control structure can satisfactorily deal with unexpected actuator faults and structural damages as well as unmodeled dynamics and wind turbulence. The stability of the closed‐loop system is proved under some realistic assumptions. The simulation results demonstrate the high capability of the proposed approach for trajectory tracking control of a conventional aircraft in the simultaneous presence of system faults and external disturbances.     

Optimal two-degree-of-freedom fuzzy control for locomotion control of a hydraulically actuated hexapod robot

Locomotion control of legged robots is a very challenging task because very accurate foot trajectory tracking control is necessary for stable walking. An electro-hydraulically actuated walking robot has sufficient power to walk on rough terrain and carry a heavier payload. However, electro-hydraulic servo systems suffer from various shortcomings such as a high degree of nonlinearity, uncertainty due to changing hydraulic properties, delay due to oil flow and dead-zone of the proportional electromagnetic control valves. These shortcomings lead to inaccurate analytical system model, therefore, application of classical control techniques result into large tracking error. Fuzzy logic is capable of modeling mathematically complex or ill-defined systems. Therefore, fuzzy logic is becoming popular for synthesis of control systems for complex and nonlinear plants. In this investigation, a two-degree-of-freedom fuzzy controller, consisting of a one-step-ahead fuzzy prefilter in the feed-forward loop and a PI-like fuzzy controller in the feedback loop, has been proposed for foot trajectory tracking control of a hydraulically actuated hexapod robot. The fuzzy prefilter has been designed by a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization. The prefilter overcomes the flattery delay caused by the hydraulic dead-zone of the electromagnetic proportional control valve and thus helps to achieve better tracking. The feedback fuzzy controller ensures the stability of the overall system in the face of model uncertainty associated with hydraulically actuated robotic mechanisms. Experimental results exhibit that the proposed controller manifests better foot trajectory tracking performance compared to single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) fuzzy controller or optimal classical controller like state feedback LQR controller.     

Simultaneous hysteresis-dynamics compensation in high-speed,large-range trajectory tracking: A data-driven iterative control

In this article, a data-driven difference-inversion-based iterative control (DDD-IIC) approach is proposed to compensate for both nonlinear hysteresis and dynamics of Hammerstein systems. Simultaneous hysteresis-dynamics compensation is needed in control of Hammerstein systems such as smart actuators, where effects of hysteresis and dynamics coexist and become pronounced in high-speed, large-range output tracking. Challenges, however, arises as hysteresis modeling, as needed in many existing control methods, can be complicated and prone to uncertainties, and the hysteresis and the dynamics are coupled and tend to change due to the variations of the system conditions (e.g., the aging of smart actuators). The proposed DDD-IIC technique aims to achieve simultaneous hysteresis-dynamics compensation with no need for modeling hysteresis and/or dynamics, and with both precision tracking and good robustness against hysteresis/dynamics variations. The convergence of the DDD-IIC algorithm in the presence of random output disturbance/noise is analyzed. It is shown that when the noise is negligible, exact tracking is achieved and the size of hysteresis accounted is given by the Golden ratio. The proposed DDD-IIC method is demonstrated via experiments of high-speed large-range output tracking on two different types of smart actuators with symmetric and asymmetric hysteresis behavior, respectively.     

Observer-based backstepping control of linear stepping motor

This paper introduces an observer-based control approach for linear stepping motor (LSM) drive systems. The nonlinear motor dynamics is addressed in the backstepping control framework. Based on this model, a systematic analysis and design algorithm is developed to deal with stabilization and trajectory tracking of linear stepping motor systems. Moreover, to broaden the application range, the backstepping control method is extended to the output feedback control scheme. With simply measuring mover position, an observer-based backstepping controller is constructed to ensure satisfactory performance. In contrast to the conventional current regulated control strategy, this investigation considers a voltage-controlled pulse-width modulation (PWM) strategy with a complete theoretic exploration. The numerical simulations and experimental results illustrate the correctness and effectiveness of proposed approach.     

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.     

Control of a six‐axis pneumatic robot

The article presents a control system for a six‐degree of freedom (DOF) anthropomorphic robot powered entirely by pneumatic actuators. The control uses digital valves driven by pulse width modulation (PWM) to regulate air flow to the actuators. The robot is equipped with position sensors, which are used to provide feedback signals for local fuzzy controllers actuating the individual servoaxes. Trajectory tracking is guided by a module, which computes the robot's inverse kinematics, generating the references for the servoaxes. Experimental results illustrated in the article indicate that the controller is effective both in controlling single axes, and in tracking a trajectory. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Model-based control of redundantly actuated parallel manipulators in redundant coordinates

Model-based control of parallel kinematics machines (PKM) relies on computationally efficient formulations in terms of a set of independent joint coordinates. Since PKM models are commonly expressed in terms of actuator or end-effector coordinates the models are not valid at input- or output-singularities, respectively. Moreover input-singularities limit the motion range of PKM. Actuation redundancy is a means to increase the singularity-free range of motion. However, due to the redundancy only a subset of the actuator coordinates constitute independent coordinates. This subset corresponds to the actuator coordinates of the non-redundant PKM, which does generally not constitute proper minimal coordinates for the entire workspace. Hence a redundantly actuated PKM (RA-PKM) controlled by a model-based controller in terms of minimal coordinates would exhibit the same limitations as the non-redundant PKM. One approach to tackle this problem is to switch between different minimal coordinates, i.e., different motion equations are used within the controller.In this contribution a computed torque and augmented PD control scheme in redundant coordinates is proposed, as an alternative to coordinate switching, and applied to the control of redundantly actuated PKM. That is, no minimal coordinates are selected. This novel formulation is numerically robust and does not suffer from input- or output-singularities. Even more the formulation is always valid except at configuration space singularities. For the redundancy resolution within the inverse dynamics the pseudoinverse of a rank deficient matrix is required, for which an explicit formulation is presented. For both controllers exponential trajectory tracking is shown. Experimental results are reported for a planar 2 DOF RA-PKM.     

Transverse function control with prescribed performance guarantees for underactuated marine surface vehicles

This paper studies the problem of stabilizing reference trajectories (also called as the trajectory tracking problem) for underactuated marine vehicles under predefined tracking error constraints. The boundary functions of the predefined constraints are asymmetric and time‐varying. The time‐varying boundary functions allow us to quantify prescribed performance of tracking errors on both transient and steady‐state stages. To overcome difficulties raised by underactuation and nonzero off‐diagonal terms in the system matrices, we develop a novel transverse function control approach to introduce an additional control input in backstepping procedure. This approach provides practical stabilization of any smooth reference trajectory, whether this trajectory is feasible or not. By practical stabilization, we mean that the tracking errors of vehicle position and orientation converge to a small neighborhood of zero. With the introduction of an error transformation function, we construct an inverse‐hyperbolic‐tangent‐like barrier Lyapunov function to show practical stability of the closed‐loop systems with prescribed transient and steady‐state performances. To deal with unmodeled dynamic uncertainties and external disturbances, we employ neural network (NN) approximators to estimate uncertain dynamics and present disturbance observers to estimate unknown disturbances. Subsequently, we develop adaptive control, based on NN approximators and disturbance estimates, that guarantees the prescribed performance of tracking errors during the transient stage of on‐line NN weight adaptations and disturbance estimates. Simulation results show the performance of the proposed tracking control.     

Fuzzy neural network quadratic stabilization output feedback control for biped robots via H/sub /spl infin// approach

A novel fuzzy neural network (FNN) quadratic stabilization output feedback control scheme is proposed for the trajectory tracking problems of biped robots with an FNN nonlinear observer. First, a robust quadratic stabilization FNN nonlinear observer is presented to estimate the joint velocities of a biped robot, in which an H/sub /spl infin// approach and variable structure control (VSC) are embedded to attenuate the effect of external disturbances and parametric uncertainties. After the construction of the FNN nonlinear observer, a quadratic stabilization FNN controller is developed with a robust hybrid control scheme. As the employment of a quadratic stability approach, not only does it afford the possibility of trading off the design between FNN, H/sub /spl infin// optimal control, and VSC, but conservative estimation of the FNN reconstruction error bound is also avoided by considering the system matrix uncertainty separately. It is shown that all signals in the closed-loop control system are bounded.     

Sliding mode-based adaptive tube model predictive control for robotic manipulators with model uncertainty and state constraints

In this paper, the optimal tracking control for robotic manipulatorswith state constraints and uncertain dynamics is investigated, and a sliding mode-based adaptive tube model predictive control method is proposed. First, utilizing the high-order fully actuated system approach, the nominal model of the robotic manipulator is constructed as the predictive model. Based on the nominal model, a nominal model predictive controller with the sliding mode is designed, which relaxes the terminal constraints, and realizes the accurate and stable tracking of the desired trajectory by the nominal system. Then, an auxiliary controller based on the node-adaptive neural networks is constructed to dynamically compensate nonlinear uncertain dynamics of the robotic manipulator. Furthermore, the estimation deviation between the nominal and actual states is limited to the tube invariant sets. At the same time, the recursive feasibility of nominal model predictive control is verified, and the ultimately uniformly boundedness of all variables is proved according to the Lyapunov theorem. Finally, experiments show that the robotic manipulator can achieve fast and efficient trajectory tracking under the action of the proposed method.