Introducing autonomous aerial robots in industrial manufacturing

Although ground robots have been successfully used for many years in manufacturing, the capability of aerial robots to agilely navigate in the often sparse and static upper part of factories makes them suitable for performing tasks of interest in many industrial sectors. This paper presents the design, development, and validation of a fully autonomous aerial robotic system for manufacturing industries. It includes modules for accurate pose estimation without using a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), autonomous navigation, radio-based localization, and obstacle avoidance, among others, providing a fully onboard solution capable of autonomously performing complex tasks in dynamic indoor environments in which all necessary sensors, electronics, and processing are on the robot. It was developed to fulfill two use cases relevant in many industries: light object logistics and missing tool search. The presented robotic system, functionalities, and use cases have been extensively validated with Technology Readiness Level 7 (TRL-7) in the Centro Bahía de Cádiz (CBC) Airbus D&S factory in fully working conditions.     

Safe and intuitive manual guidance of a robot manipulator using adaptive admittance control towards robot agility

Key areas of robot agility include methods that increase capability and flexibility of industrial robots and facilitate robot re-tasking. Manual guidance can achieve robot agility effectively, provided that a safe and smooth interaction is guaranteed when the user exerts an external force on the end effector. We approach this by designing an adaptive admittance law that can adjust its parameters to modify the robot compliance in critical areas of the workspace, such as near and on configuration singularities, joint limits, and workspace limits, for a smooth and safe operation. Experimental validation was done with two tests: a constraint activation test and a 3D shape tracing task. In the first one, we validate the proper response to constraints and in the second one, we compare the proposed approach with different admittance parameter tuning strategies using a drawing task where the user is asked to guide the robot to trace a 3D profile with an accuracy or speed directive and evaluate performance considering path length error and execution time as metrics, and a questionnaire for user perception. Results show that appropriate response to individual and simultaneous activation of the aforementioned constraints for a safe and intuitive manual guidance interaction is achieved and that the proposed parameter tuning strategy has better performance in terms of accuracy, execution time, and subjective evaluation of users.     

基于机器人运动模型的EKF-SLAM算法改进

针对两轮驱动机器人运动模型定向误差的累积问题,提出改进的三轮驱动机器人运动模型,对EKF-SLAM算法的一致性进行改进;该模型通过对机器人车轮线速度的解耦运算,将机器人运动过程中的旋转角速度提取出来并作为系统的控制输入之一,从而可以直接得到各个控制时间间隔内的机器人姿态角变化,很好地避免了机器人定向误差的累积;最后,基于归一化估计方差的检验标准进行实验,验证了三轮驱动机器人运动模型有效提高了EKF-SLAM算法的一致性。     

以ARM为核心的嵌入式体感遥控器设计

介绍一种以ARM为核心的嵌入式服务机器人体感遥控器的设计。硬件上,本遥控器采用具有ARM Cortex—M3内核的STM32F103C8T6作为核心处理器,选用ST公司的iNEMO惯性导航模块进行手部姿态的识别,同时还具有LCD显示模块、无线收发模块和电源模块;软件上,采用嵌入式操作系统μC／OS—Ⅱ实现多任务的调度和外围设备的管理。经实验验证,本遥控器具有高稳定性、高实时性、高可靠性、低误码率等优点。     

Design of robotic visual servo control based on neural network and genetic algorithm

A new visual servo control scheme for a robotic manipulator is presented in this paper, where a back propagation (BP) neural network is used to make a direct transition from image feature to joint angles without requiring robot kinematics and camera calibration. To speed up the convergence and avoid local minimum of the neural network, this paper uses a genetic algorithm to find the optimal initial weights and thresholds and then uses the BP algorithm to train the neural network according to the data given. The proposed method can effectively combine the good global searching ability of genetic algorithms with the accurate local searching feature of BP neural network. The Simulink model for PUMA560 robot visual servo system based on the improved BP neural network is built with the Robotics Toolbox of Matlab. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method can accelerate convergence of the image errors and provide a simple and effective way of robot control.     

Systematic robustness analysis of least squares mobile robot velocity estimation using a regular polygonal optical mouse array

This paper presents the robust velocity estimation of an omnidirectional mobile robot using a regular polygonal array of optical mice that are installed at the bottom of a mobile robot. First, the velocity kinematics from a mobile robot to an array of optical mice is derived, from which the least squares estimation of the mobile robot velocity is obtained as the simple average of the optical mouse velocity readings. Second, it is shown that a redundant number of optical mice contributes to the robustness of the least squares mobile robot velocity estimation against both measurement noises and partial malfunction of optical mice. Third, the sensitivity analysis of the least squares mobile robot velocity estimation to imprecise installation of optical mice is made, from which a practical method of optical mouse position calibration is devised. Finally, some experimental results using commercial optical mice are given to demonstrate the validity and performance of the proposed mobile robot velocity estimation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

海水中VLF传播特性分析

本文以电磁波反射定律与折射定律为基础,建立了电磁波在两种介质分界面处的传播模型,研究了甚低频电磁波在导电媒质中的传播特性,推导了甚低频波在海面及海水中传播的电场表达式,分析了导电媒质对不同频率的电磁波所产生的影响,分析结果表明,甚低频电磁波在海水中的穿透深度较大,能够满足水下通信要求。     

未知环境下机器人障碍物检测技术

未知环境下地面的不平坦性和机器人相对障碍物位姿的不确定性会造成障碍物特征提取困难,为了准确检测障碍物特征,采用3维相机获取机器人周围环境的灰度图像和距离信息。在此基础上,提出基于灰度信息和3维信息的"阈值法"进行障碍物区域的提取,并针对3维信息"阈值法"剔除的地面与障碍物过渡区域过多,以及机器人相对斜坡方位的不确定性引起的障碍物特征检测不准确,提出区域的恢复算法和表面法线坡度计算。实验结果表明,所提出的算法具有简单、有效、准确和鲁棒性强的优点。     

未知环境下基于约束点的移动机器人路径规划

针对未知环境中障碍物种类多样性和位置不确定性的特点,提出了基于约束点的路径规划方法。首先对机器人在未知环境中检测到的局部障碍物信息进行分类和几何特征属性描述,得其约束点信息,然后引入改进后的A*算法,将其搜索范围局限于约束点上,计算约束点的评价函数值后得到子目标点,机器人到达子目标点后,若陷入死区,则采取回溯路径策略,重新选择子目标点,否则根据该点所属的障碍物种类采取跨越或绕行避障策略,最后移动机器人在未知环境中顺利到达目标点。仿真研究说明本文提出的路径规划方法具有可行性和有效性。     

触觉式机器人焊缝跟踪方法

对机器人在焊缝自动跟踪方面进行了研究，介绍了机器人触觉的力传感器结构和使用方法。对力信号进行解耦及信号解算，有效地消除了机器人在工作过程中振动，抖动对力信号的污染，使机器人有能力自动识别，跟踪焊缝及焊枪位置修正，从而保证焊接质量。