Neural-network control of mobile manipulators

In this paper, a neural network (NN)-based methodology is developed for the motion control of mobile manipulators subject to kinematic constraints. The dynamics of the mobile manipulator is assumed to be completely unknown, and is identified online by the NN estimators. No preliminary learning stage of NN weights is required. The controller is capable of disturbance-rejection in the presence of unmodeled bounded disturbances. The tracking stability of the closed-loop system, the convergence of the NN weight-updating process and boundedness of NN weight estimation errors are all guaranteed. Experimental tests on a 4-DOF manipulator arm illustrate that the proposed controller significantly improves the performance in comparison with conventional robust control.     

基于不确定逼近的机械手自适应鲁棒预测控制

针对具有参数不确定性和未知外部干扰的机械手轨迹跟踪问题提出了一种多输入多输出自适应鲁棒预测控制方法. 首先根据机械手模型设计非线性鲁棒预测控制律, 并在控制律中引入监督控制项; 然后利用函数逼近的方法逼近控制律中因模型不确定性以及外部干扰引起的未知项. 理论证明了所设计的控制律能够使机械手无静差跟踪期望的关节角轨迹. 仿真验证了本文设计方法的有效性.     

Robust control of mobile manipulators

A mobile manipulator is basically a manipulator mounted on a mobile vehicle. This arrangement has some advantages over stationary robots and mobile robots, such as the infinite workspace and the ability to avoid singularities. However, the control problem becomes a sophisticated one. This is due to the nonlinear and nonholonomic constraints governing the motion of the vehicle. Moreover, the dynamics of the manipulator and the vehicle are highly coupled; ground-surface irregularities, for example, affect the motion of the end effector kinematically and dynamically. A mobile manipulator is expected to pass through different environmental conditions, a fact which calls for a robust control scheme. Unfortunately, the robust control problem for nonholonomic systems is not well defined yet. Since the ultimate goal of control is to control the motion of the manipulator's end effector, it is proposed in this article to tackle the robustness issue by designing a manipulator decoupling controller. This controller aims at rejecting disturbances arising from the motion of the vehicle. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Motion Control of a Nonholonomic Mobile Manipulator in Task Space

In this paper, the motion control of a mobile manipulator subjected to nonholonomic constraints is investigated. The control objective is to design a computed‐torque controller based on the coupled dynamics of the mobile manipulator. The proposed controller achieves the capability of simultaneous tracking of a reference velocity for the mobile base and a reference trajectory for the end‐effector. The aforementioned reference velocity and trajectory are defined in the task space, such task setting imitates the actual working conditions of a mobile manipulator and thus makes the control problem practical. To solve this tracking problem, a steering velocity is firstly designed based on the first‐order kinematic model of the nonholonomic mobile base via dynamic feedback linearization. The main merit of the proposed steering velocity design is that it directly utilizes the reference velocity set in the task space without requiring the knowledge of a reference orientation. A torque controller is subsequently developed based on a proposed Lyapunov function which explicitly considers the coupled dynamics of the mobile manipulator to ensure the mobile base and end‐effector track the reference velocity and trajectory respectively. This proposed computed‐torque controller is able to realize asymptotic stability of both the base velocity tracking error and the end‐effector motion tracking error. Simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.     

移动机械手鲁棒自适应模糊控制

基于旋量理论建立了非完整移动机械手系统的动力学模型,通过反步控制技术,应用非线性参数化模糊逻辑系统设计了移动机械手的鲁棒自适应模糊控制器.该控制器放松了移动机械手控制器设计中斜对称性的要求,对移动机械手系统中存在的参数或外界扰动等不确定性具有较强的鲁棒性和自适应能力.理论证明和仿真结果表明,所设计的控制器是有效的.     

移动机械手的跟踪控制

讨论一类不确定非完整移动机械手的跟踪控制问题。在系统惯性参数不精确知道的情况下,提出一种鲁棒控制器。为提高跟踪性能,进一步设计出使跟踪误差指数收敛的控制器。计算机仿真验证了所提出控制律的有效性。     

Robust tracking control of a unicycle-type wheeled mobile manipulator using a hybrid sliding mode fuzzy neural network

This article presents a robust tracking controller for an uncertain mobile manipulator system. A rigid robotic arm is mounted on a wheeled mobile platform whose motion is subject to nonholonomic constraints. The sliding mode control (SMC) method is associated with the fuzzy neural network (FNN) to constitute a robust control scheme to cope with three types of system uncertainties; namely, external disturbances, modelling errors, and strong couplings in between the mobile platform and the onboard arm subsystems. All parameter adjustment rules for the proposed controller are derived from the Lyapunov theory such that the tracking error dynamics and the FNN weighting updates are ensured to be stable with uniform ultimate boundedness (UUB).     

A Gaussian wavelet network-based robust adaptive tracking controller for a wheeled mobile robot with unknown wheel slips

In this paper, a robust adaptive tracking controller is proposed for a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot (WMR) in the presence of unknown wheel slips. The role of the Gaussian wavelet network in this proposed controller is to approximate unknown smooth nonlinear dynamic functions due to no prior knowledge of the dynamic parameters of the WMR. In addition, one robust law is employed at the kinematic level so as to compensate the harmful effects of the unknown wheel slips, and another robust law is used at the dynamic level to overcome total uncertainties caused by dynamic parameter variations, external disturbances, etc. The stability of the whole closed-loop control system is proved in accordance with Lyapunov theory and Barbalat's lemma. Ultimately, the simulation results are shown in comparison with those of another control method under the same condition to confirm the validity and efficiency of this proposed control method.     

Neural network robust control of a 3-DOF hydraulic manipulator with asymptotic tracking

Multiaxial hydraulic manipulators are complicated systems with highly nonlinear dynamics and various modeling uncertainties, which hinders the development of high-performance controller. In this paper, a neural network feedforward with a robust integral of the sign of the error (RISE) feedback is proposed for high precise tracking control of hydraulic manipulator systems. The established nonlinear model takes three-axis dynamic coupling, hydraulic actuator dynamics, and nonlinear friction effects into consideration. A radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is synthesized to approximate the uncertain system dynamics and external disturbance, which can greatly reduce the dependence on accurate system model. In addition, a continuous RISE feedback law is judiciously integrated to deal with the residual unknown dynamics. Since the major unknown dynamics can be estimated by the RBFNN and then compensated in the feedforward design, the high-gain feedback issue in RISE feedback control will be avoided. The proposed RISE-based neural network robust controller theoretically guarantees an excellent semi-global asymptotic stability. Comparative simulation is performed on a 3-DOF hydraulic manipulator, and the obtained results verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.     

基于不确定逼近的机械手间接自适应鲁棒预测控制

为了使机械手系统在含有模型不确定项时具有良好的跟踪性能和较强的抗干扰能力,提出了一种间接自适应鲁棒预测控制。首先,针对机械手模型设计出非线性鲁棒预测控制器;然后,基于三次样条函数逼近控制律中因模型不确定性产生的未知项,并在控制律中引入一个D-控制项抑制外部干扰。理论证明了所设计的控制器能够使跟踪误差收敛到原点。仿真验证了所提方法的有效性。     

Robust adaptive control of uncertain force/motion constrained nonholonomic mobile manipulators

In this paper, force/motion tracking control is investigated for nonholonomic mobile manipulators with unknown parameters and disturbances under uncertain holonomic constraints. The nonholonomic mobile manipulator is transformed into a reduced chained form, and then, robust adaptive force/motion control with hybrid variable signals is proposed to compensate for parametric uncertainties and suppress bounded disturbances. The control scheme guarantees that the outputs of the dynamic system track some bounded auxiliary signals, which subsequently drive the kinematic system to the desired trajectory/force. Simulation studies on the control of a wheeled mobile manipulator are used to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Adaptive robust posture control of a parallel manipulator driven by pneumatic muscles

Rather severe parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities exist in the dynamic modeling of a parallel manipulator driven by pneumatic muscles. Those uncertainties not only come from the time-varying friction forces and the static force modeling errors of pneumatic muscles but also from the inherent complex nonlinearities and unknown disturbances of the parallel manipulator. In this paper, a discontinuous projection-based adaptive robust control strategy is adopted to compensate for both the parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities of a three-pneumatic-muscles-driven parallel manipulator to achieve precise posture trajectory tracking control. The resulting controller effectively handles the effects of various parameter variations and the hard-to-model nonlinearities such as the friction forces of the pneumatic muscles. Simulation and experimental results are obtained to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive robust controller.     

基于自适应动态规划的移动装弹机械臂轨迹控制

针对移动装弹机械臂系统非线性、强耦合、受多种不确定因素影响的问题,本文基于自适应动态规划方法,提出了仅包含评价网络结构的轨迹跟踪控制方法,有效减小了系统跟踪误差.首先,考虑到系统非线性特性、变量间强耦合作用及重力因素的影响,通过拉格朗日方程建立了移动装弹机械臂的动力学模型.其次,针对系统存在不确定性上界未知的问题,建立单网络评价结构,通过策略迭代算法,求解哈密顿–雅可比–贝尔曼方程,基于李雅普诺夫稳定性理论,设计了自适应动态规划轨迹跟踪控制方法.最后,通过仿真实验将该控制方法与自适应滑模控制方法进行了对比,进一步检验了所设计控制方法的有效性.     

Robust nonlinear control of a planar 2-DOF parallel manipulator with redundant actuation

A new robust nonlinear controller is presented and applied to a planar 2-DOF parallel manipulator with redundant actuation. The robust nonlinear controller is designed by combining the nonlinear PD (NPD) control with the robust dynamics compensation. The NPD control is used to eliminate the trajectory disturbances, unmodeled dynamics and nonlinear friction, and the robust control is used to restrain the model uncertainties of the parallel manipulator. The proposed controller is proven to guarantee the uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop system by the Lyapunov theory. The trajectory tracking experiment with the robust nonlinear controller is implemented on an actual planar 2-DOF parallel manipulator with redundant actuation. The experimental results are compared with the augmented PD (APD) controller, and the proposed controller shows much better trajectory tracking accuracy.     

On Multiple Secondary Task Execution of Redundant Nonholonomic Mobile Manipulators

This paper investigates self-motion control of redundant nonholonomic mobile manipulators, to execute multiple secondary tasks including tip-over prevention, singularity removal, obstacle avoidance and physical limits escape. An extended gradient projection method (EGPM) is proposed to determine self-motion directions, and a real-time fuzzy logic self-motion planner (FLSMP) is devised to generate the corresponding self-motion magnitudes. Unlike the task-priority allocation method and the extended Jacobian method, the proposed scheme is simple to implement and is free from algorithm singularities. The proposed dynamic model is established with consideration of nonholonomic constraints of the mobile platform, interactive motions between the mobile platform and the onboard manipulator, as well as self-motions allowed by redundancy of the entire robot. Furthermore, a robust adaptive neural-network controller (RANNC) is developed to accomplish multiple secondary tasks without affecting the primary one in the workspace. The RANNC does not rely on precise prior knowledge of dynamic parameters and can suppress bounded external disturbance effectively. In addition, the RANNC does not require any off-line training and can ensure the control performance by online adjusting the neural-network parameters through adaptation laws. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified via simulations on a three-wheeled redundant nonholonomic mobile manipulator.     

Robust adaptive control for mobile manipulators

This paper addresses the trajectory tracking control of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile manipulator with parameter uncertainties and disturbances. The proposed algorithm adopts a robust adaptive control strategy where parametric uncertainties are compensated by adaptive update techniques and the disturbances are suppressed. A kinematic controller is first designed to make the robot follow a desired end-effector and platform trajectories in task space coordinates simultaneously. Then, an adaptive control scheme is proposed, which ensures that the trajectories are accurately tracked even in the presence of external disturbances and uncertainties. The system stability and the convergence of tracking errors to zero are rigorously proven using Lyapunov theory. Simulations results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust adaptive control law in comparison with a sliding mode controller.     

非完整移动机械手鲁棒自适应模糊控制

考虑系统存在的参数、外界扰动和未建模动态等不确定性,研究非完整移动机械手的鲁棒自适应控制器设计方法.基于用旋量理论建立的非完整移动机械手的动力学模型,设计了移动平台子系统的运动控制器,然后应用非线性反步控制技术和模糊逻辑系统的通用逼近性,用参数化线性模糊逻辑系统逼近非完整移动机械手动力学模型中的不确定项,基于Lyapu...     

A robust adaptive tracking controller using neural networks for a class of nonlinear systems

A neural networkbased robust adaptive tracking control scheme is proposed for a class of nonlinear systems. It is shown that, unlike most neural control schemes using the back-propagation training technique, one hidden layer neural controller is designed in the Lyapunov sense, and the parameters of the neural controller are then adaptively adjusted for the compensation of unknown dynamics and nonlinearities. Using this scheme, not only strong robustness with respect to unknown dynamics and nonlinearities can be obtained, but also asymptotic error convergence between the plant output and the reference model output can be guaranteed. A simulation example based on a one-link non-linear robotic manipulator is given in support of the proposed neural control scheme.     

非完整移动机器人的神经网络鲁棒自适应控制

在非完整移动机器人轨迹跟踪问题中,针对机器人运动学与动力学模型的参数和非参数不确定性,提出了一种混合神经网络鲁棒自适应轨迹跟踪控制器,该控制器由运动学控制器和动力学控制器两部分组成;其中,采用了参数自适应的径向基神经网络对运动学模型的未知部分进行了建模,并采用权值在线调整的单层神经网络和自适应鲁棒控制项构成了动力学控制器;基于Lyapunov方法的设计过程保证了系统的稳定性和收敛性,仿真结果证明了算法的有效性。     

Nonlinear robust adaptive Cartesian impedance control of UAVs equipped with a robot manipulator

In this paper, a new nonlinear robust adaptive impedance controller is addressed for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with a robot manipulator that physically interacts with environment. A UAV equipped with a robot manipulator is a novel system that can perform different tasks instead of human being in dangerous and/or inaccessible environments. The objective of the proposed robust adaptive controller is control of the UAV and its robotic manipulator’s end-effector impedance in Cartesian space in order to have a stable physical interaction with environment. The proposed controller is robust against parametric uncertainties in the nonlinear dynamics model of the UAV and the robot manipulator. Moreover, the controller has robustness against the bounded force sensor inaccuracies and bounded unstructured modeling (nonparametric) uncertainties and/or disturbances in the system. Tracking performance and stability of the system are proved via Lyapunov stability theorem. Using simulations on a quadrotor UAV equipped with a three-DOF robot manipulator, the effectiveness of the proposed robust adaptive impedance controller is investigated in the presence of the force sensor error, and parametric and non-parametric uncertainties.