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.     

Pose Planning for a Mobile Manipulator Based on Joint Motions for Posture Adjustment to End-Effector Error

This paper proposes a motion planning method for a mobile manipulator. In general, humans can grasp an object by various ways which depend on object posture, position and so on. The objective of this paper is to present how to detect the pose of a mobile manipulator under the condition that several ways of grasping are given to the robot. Motion errors and object position errors are considered to detect robot pose in our method because these affect the grasp motion of the robot hand. Coping with these errors, we will propose an effective pose searching method for a mobile manipulator from numerous pose candidates. The performance of the proposed method is illustrated by simulation and experiment.     

基于变刚度自适应导纳机制的机械臂恒力控制

工业机械臂在诸如打磨抛光等接触式作业任务中对环境刚度信息存在一定的依赖性, 未知环境刚度信息将严重影响机器人的力位控制精度, 使得作业效果难以得到保证. 为解决环境信息不足或未知情况下的力/位置精确控制问题, 本文首先提出了一种新的自适应环境刚度在线估计方法, 针对时变的环境刚度进行实时估计, 由此预测生成后继的机械臂参考轨迹点, 随后提出了一种根据力跟踪误差实时调整末端工具手刚度系数的变刚度导纳恒力控制方法, 并结合李雅普诺夫稳定性理论给出了整体控制律的收敛性证明. 针对刚柔两种末端工具手和多种不同的曲面工件开展了实验研究, 并与传统PID控制方法和传统导纳控制方法进行了对比, 其结果表明本文所提出的复合控制方法可在不同工况条件下实现机器人运动过程中接触力的快速柔顺调节, 并获得4.55%以内的最优力控误差效果, 证明了本文所提出方法的有效性与可行性.     

Autonomous selection and modification of camera configurations using visibility and manipulability measures

In this article, we present a camera control method in which the selection of an optimal camera position and the modification of camera configurations are accomplished according to changes in the surroundings. For the autonomous selection and modification of camera configurations during tasks, we consider the camera's visibility and the manipulator's manipulability. The visibility constraint guarantees that the whole of a target object can be “viewed” with no occlusions by the surroundings, and the manipulability constraint guarantees avoidance of the singular position of the manipulator and rapid modification of the camera position. By considering visibility and manipulability constraints simultaneously, we determine the optimal camera position and modify the camera configuration such that visual information for the target object can be obtained continuously during tasks. The results of simulations and experiments show that the active camera system with an eye‐in‐hand configuration can modify its configuration autonomously according to the motion of the surroundings by applying the proposed camera control method. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Control of mobile manipulators for power assist systems

In this article, we present a control method for mobile power assist systems. Most mobile power assist systems have a heavy mobile base for preventing easy tumbling, so the continual movement of the base during operations causes high energy consumption and gives a high risk of human injury. Furthermore, the slow dynamics of the base limits the frequency bandwidth of the whole system. We propose a cooperation control method of the mobile base and manipulator, which removes the unnecessary movement of the base. In our scheme, the mobile base does not move until the tip position of the manipulator deviates from a user‐defined preferred operating region. When the tip position reaches the boundary of the preferred operating region, the operator can feel reflecting force caused by the virtual impedance, which pushes the manipulator's tip into the preferred operating region. And if the operator applies larger force than a threshold value of reflecting force, the base starts moving to recover the manipulator's initial configuration. Our scheme is implemented by assigning a virtual mass–damper–spring impedance to the manipulator's tip. The experimental results show the efficacy of the proposed control methods. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Review and unification of reduced-order force control methods

In this article, we compare some of the recent methods developed for simultaneous position and force control of a single n-link constrained robot manipulator. Mathematical models of the constrained manipulator are introduced and the advantages and disadvantages of the associated control formulations are discussed. The similarities between each of the proposed formulations are also highlighted. Finally, a transformation is presented that generalizes the methods of decoupling force from the position dynamics.     

Dynamic hybrid position/force control of a two degree-of-freedom flexible manipulator

In this article, a method is proposed whereby both contact force exerted by a flexible manipulator and position of end-effector while in contact with a surface are controlled. We approximate elastic deformations by means of B-spline functions and derive dynamic equations of joint angles, vibration of the flexible link, and constraint force. A controller for the hybrid position/force control of the flexible manipulator is designed on the basis of the singular perturbation method. Simulation results confirm that the controller performs remarkably well. © 3994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

基于投影直方图匹配的双目视觉跟踪算法

为了在机器人机械手双目视觉伺服系统中跟踪并精确定位目标的空间位置,提出了一种利用投影直方图匹配和极线几何约束的目标跟踪方法。分别在2个视觉中人工标定目标,并提取目标在多颜色空间的水平、垂直投影直方图作为匹配模板;在一个视觉中利用目标的运动一致性原则和投影直方图匹配搜索并跟踪目标;在另一个视觉中依据双目视觉系统的极线几何原理限定目标搜索范围,搜索并定位目标。该方法利用水平、垂直投影直方图描述目标的结构信息,同时完成了双目视觉系统中的目标跟踪与配准功能,有利于目标的精确定位和视觉测量。实验结果表明,该方法可在双目视觉系统中有效跟踪目标,运算效率高,鲁棒性强。     

Position referenced force augmentation in teleoperated hydraulic manipulators operating under delayed and lossy networks: A pilot study

Position error between motions of the master and slave end-effectors is inevitable as it originates from hard-to-avoid imperfections in controller design and model uncertainty. Moreover, when a slave manipulator is controlled through a delayed and lossy communication channel, the error between the desired motion originating from the master device and the actual movement of the slave manipulator end-effector is further exacerbated. This paper introduces a force feedback scheme to alleviate this problem by simply guiding the operator to slow down the haptic device motion and, in turn, allows the slave manipulator to follow the desired trajectory closely. Using this scheme, the master haptic device generates a force, which is proportional to the position error at the slave end-effector, and opposite to the operator’s intended motion at the master site. Indeed, this force is a signal or cue to the operator for reducing the hand speed when position error, due to delayed and lossy network, appears at the slave site. Effectiveness of the proposed scheme is validated by performing experiments on a hydraulic telemanipulator setup developed for performing live-line maintenance. Experiments are conducted when the system operates under both dedicated and wireless networks. Results show that the scheme performs well in reducing the position error between the haptic device and the slave end-effector. Specifically, by utilizing the proposed force, the mean position error, for the case presented here, reduces by at least 92% as compared to the condition without the proposed force augmentation scheme. The scheme is easy to implement, as the only required on-line measurement is the angular displacement of the slave manipulator joints.     

一种受限机械手的自适应力/位置控制方法*

对于受限机械臂,本文提出了一种自适应的力/位置控制方法。其实现是基于给出的新的降阶动力学模型,在反馈信号中引入力的累积误差信号,利用降阶模型的本身特性从而达到自适应力/位置控制的目的。给出的自适应律是通过跟踪误差信号来调节的。仿真结果证实了本方法的正确性。     

A human–robot interface for mobile manipulator

This paper presents a remote manipulation method for mobile manipulator through operator’s gesture. In particular, a track mobile robot is equipped with a 4-DOF robot arm to grasp objects. Operator uses one hand to control both the motion of mobile robot and the posture of robot arm via scheme of gesture polysemy method which is put forward in this paper. A sensor called leap motion (LM), which can obtain the position and posture data of hand, is employed in this system. Two filters were employed to estimate the position and posture of human hand so as to reduce the inherent noise of the sensor. Kalman filter was used to estimate the position, and particle filter was used to estimate the orientation. The advantage of the proposed method is that it is feasible to control a mobile manipulator through just one hand using a LM sensor. The effectiveness of the proposed human–robot interface was verified in laboratory with a series of experiments. And the results indicate that the proposed human–robot interface is able to track the movements of operator’s hand with high accuracy. It is found that the system can be employed by a non-professional operator for robot teleoperation.     

基于卷积神经网络的机械臂抓取控制系统设计

为保证机械臂的抓取精度,保证物体抓取的稳定性,本文设计基于卷积神经网络的机械臂抓取控制系统。在系统硬件部分,加设图像、位置和压力传感器,改装机械臂抓取控制器和运动驱动器,利用图像传感器设备,获取满足质量要求的机械臂抓取目标图像,为机械臂抓取控制功能提供硬件支持。软件部分利用卷积神经网络算法提取图像特征,确定机械臂抓取目标位置。结合机械臂当前位置的检测结果,规划机械臂抓取路线,预估机械臂抓取角度与抓取力。最终通过机械臂抓取参数控制量的计算,在控制器的支持下实现系统的机械臂抓取控制功能。实验结果表明,所设计系统应用下位置控制误差和速度控制误差的平均值分别为0.192m和0.138m/s,同时物体抓取掉落概率明显降低。     

Frequency response experiments of eye-vergence visual servoing in lateral motion with 3D evolutionary pose tracking

Visual servoing towards moving target with hand-eye cameras fixed at hand is inevitably affected by hand dynamical oscillations. Therefore, it is difficult to make target position keep always at the center of camera’s view, as nonlinear dynamical effects of whole manipulator stand against tracking ability. To overcome this defect of the hand-eye fixed camera system, an eye-vergence system has been put forward, where the cameras could rotate to observe the target object. The visual servoing controllers of hand and eye-vergence are installed independently, so that it can observe the target object at the center of camera images through eye-vergence function. The dynamical superiorities of eye-vergence system are verified through frequency response experiments, comparing with hand tracking performances and the proposed eye-vergence tracking performances. This paper analyzes the performance of 3D-object position and orientation tracking, in which orientation representation method is based on quaternion, and the orientation tracking results are shown with more comprehensive analysis of system performance.     

面向位控机器人的力/位混合控制

本文提出了一种面向位控机器人的力/位混合控制策略．通过力反馈信息对未知约 束进行估计获得位控和力控方向,根据位控和力控方向对机器人终端的运动轨迹进行规划, 并采用阻抗力控制规律以使机器人获得较好的柔顺性．仿真试验表明,该策略具有较高的力 控制精度和表面跟踪能力．     

Tracking control for an object in pushing operation

In this paper, we consider the problem of making a manipulator push an object on a flat floor with a point of contact to a desired position. A manipulator control method for the object to follow a planned trajectory is proposed. First, using the given distribution of frictional forces between the object and the floor, we find a particular point, named pseudo center, on which the motion of the pushed object can be approximated by the motion of a wheeled mobile robot on its center. Then, a control rule for the pushing operation is derived by applying a tracking control rule for a nonholonomic mobile robot at the pseudo center. This method makes it possible for the robot to perform the tracking control in the pushing operation. A simulation result shows the effectiveness of the proposed method. Finally, we present an approach for using a mobile manipulator to realize the pushing operation. Experimental verification of the proposed method was performed and the result is described. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Sensor-based force decouple controller design of macro–mini manipulator

A robotic polishing system includes a force-controlled end-effector (mini manipulator) and a position-controlled industrial robot (macro manipulator). This combination mode has a fast response and a large workspace. However, the force-controlled axis component of the macro motions and the geometric of the workpiece surfaces will affect the contact force response rate and tracking accuracy due to the coupling dynamics between the macro and mini, limiting system performance. A new dynamic decoupling method employing dual force sensors (DFSs) is proposed to address these problems. One of the force sensors installed between the endpoint of the macro and the fixed platform of the mini realizes the dynamic decoupling of the macro and mini. The other one is added at the endpoint of the mini to obtain the interaction force in contact with the environment and feed it back to the control loop. When the disturbances produced by the macro trajectories and the uncertainties coming from the workpiece are introduced into the system, the proposed method can improve force response rate and tracking accuracy without knowing the dynamic models and parameters of the macro and the geometric of the workpiece surface. Several experiments are carried out under various conditions. Experimental results indicate that the contact force response rate and tracking error of DFSs are better than those of the conventional force-controlled and impedance matching methods, proving the proposed method’s effectiveness. In addition, the last comparison experiment verifies that the DFSs method applies to different kinds of end-effectors with various dynamics.     

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。     

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.     

Cooperative Control of a 3D Dual-Flexible-Arm Robot

This paper discusses cooperative control of a dual-flexible-arm robot to handle a rigid object in three-dimensional space. The proposed control scheme integrates hybrid position/force control and vibration suppression control. To derive the control scheme, kinematics and dynamics of the robot when it forms a closed kinematic chain is discussed. Kinematics is described using workspace force, velocity and position vectors, and hybrid position/force control is extended from that on dual-rigid-arm robots. Dynamics is derived from constraint conditions and the lumped-mass-spring model of the flexible robots and an object. The vibration suppression control is calculated from the deflections of the flexible links and the dynamics. Experiments on cooperative control are performed. The absolute positions/orientations and internal forces/moments are controlled using the robot, each arm of which has two flexible links, seven joints and a force/torque sensor. The results illustrate that the robot handled the rigid object damping links' vibration successfully in three-dimensional space.     

基于人机交互的重载机械臂控制方法

针对目前重载机械臂控制系统存在的人机交互性不足问题及重载带来的刚柔耦合问题,设计了一种基于动力学模型的人机交互闭环力!/!位控制算法,并依据该算法设计了7自由度重载机械臂控制系统.首先分析了国内外重载机械臂的工作特点和存在的问题,提出基于力!/!视觉反馈的人机交互方式来增强系统的人机交互性;然后为抑制刚柔耦合带来的控制问题,建立了重载机械臂刚柔耦合动力学模型,提出基于人机交互的重载机械臂力!/!位闭环控制算法.最后搭建重载机械臂控制系统,搭建的控制系统包括人机交互子系统、环境感知子系统、驱动子系统、信息处理子系统及通信子系统.在此基础上,进行重载机械臂控制系统作业试验.试验结果表明,该控制系统能够完成人机交互作业功能,相对于传统重载机械臂作业手段,有效提高了作业效率70%,保障了作业人员安全,验证了所提出控制系统的人机友好性、可行性和实用性.