Tactile display with tangential and normal skin displacement for robot-assisted surgery

This paper proposes a tactile display providing both shear and normal feedback to the fingertip for generating three-axis tactile feedback during teleoperation of a surgical robot. The display is composed of five balloons actuated by controlling the pneumatic pressure. The implemented display is 18?mm?×?18?mm?×?15?mm. This size is suitable for mounting the display onto the master controls of a surgical robot. The maximum normal and shear displacements are 2 and 1.3?mm, respectively. The proposed tactile display may provide perceivable stimuli to a human finger pad in all five directions: normal, distal, proximal, radial, and ulnar. This paper also reports on the results of psychophysical measurement of the minimum perceivable movement of the developed tactile display for each of the five directions.     

Development of large-scale stacked-type electrostatic actuators for use as artificial muscles

Electrostatic actuators have the advantages of light weight, flexibility, and high energy efficiency, which make them suitable for use as artificial muscles. However, a traditional electrostatic actuator cannot generate long strokes and a high force density at the same time because such actuator would excessively widen the gap between the electrodes because of its structure. This paper presents a newly developed large-scale stacked-type electrostatic actuator (LSEA) intended for use as an artificial muscle for robots. LSEA is a multi-stacked electrostatic actuator that can be linearly contracted by the application of a voltage. It has a unique structure that prevents overextension of the gap between the electrodes. It can therefore generate a large force. The spring characteristics and the relationship between the contractive force and the stroke were experimentally determined. The findings showed that LSEA prevents the overextension of the gap between the electrodes and has a high contraction ratio that is equivalent to that of a mammalian skeletal muscle.     

Rescheduling policies for large-scale task allocation of autonomous straddle carriers under uncertainty at automated container terminals

This paper investigates replanning strategies for container-transportation task allocation of autonomous Straddle Carriers (SC) at automated container terminals. The strategies address the problem of large-scale scheduling in the context of uncertainty (especially uncertainty associated with unexpected events such as the arrival of a new task). Two rescheduling policies–Rescheduling New arrival Jobs (RNJ) policy and Rescheduling Combination of new and unexecuted Jobs (RCJ) policy–are presented and compared for long-term Autonomous SC Scheduling (ASCS) under the uncertainty of new job arrival. The long-term performance of the two rescheduling policies is evaluated using a multi-objective cost function (i.e., the sum of the costs of SC travelling, SC waiting, and delay of finishing high-priority jobs). This evaluation is conducted based on two different ASCS solving algorithms–an exact algorithm (i.e., branch-and-bound with column generation (BBCG) algorithm) and an approximate algorithm (i.e., auction algorithm)–to get the schedule of each short-term planning for the policy. Based on the map of an actual fully-automated container terminal, simulation and comparative results demonstrate the quality advantage of the RCJ policy compared with the RNJ policy for task allocation of autonomous straddle carriers under uncertainty. Long-term testing results also show that although the auction algorithm is much more efficient than the BBCG algorithm for practical applications, it is not effective enough, even when employed by the superior RCJ policy, to achieve high-quality scheduling of autonomous SCs at the container terminals.     

A virtual actuator and sensor approach for fault tolerant control of LPV systems

In this paper, a fault tolerant control (FTC) strategy using virtual actuators and sensors for linear parameter varying (LPV) systems is proposed. The main idea of this FTC method, initially developed for LTI systems, is to reconfigure the control loop such that the nominal controller could still be used without need of retuning it. The plant with the faulty actuator/sensor is modified adding the virtual actuator/sensor block that masks the actuator/sensor fault. The suggested technique is an active FTC strategy that reconfigures the virtual actuator/sensor on-line taking into account faults and operating point changes. The stability of the reconfigured control loop is guaranteed if the faulty plant is stabilizable/detectable. The LPV virtual actuator/sensor is designed using polytopic LPV techniques and linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). A two-tank system simulator is used to assess the performance of the proposed method. In particular, it is shown that the application of the proposed technique results in an improvement, in terms of performance, with respect to the LTI counterpart.     

基于N步不变集的时滞切换系统的饱和控制

构造离散时滞切换系统的不变集,提出基于N步不变集的切换控制器设计方法,估计执行器饱和非线性的吸引域范围。首先,考虑时滞的影响,选取依赖于时滞的Lyapunov函数,构造时滞切换系统的不变集,并将其表达为若干个椭球集的凸组合,椭球集的个数与时滞常数相关。其次,在系统的前N个采样时刻,分别施加不同的饱和约束,求解得到一组椭球集,椭球集的个数与常数N相关,而每一步计算得到的椭球集均为时滞切换系统的不变集。再将N个不变集用一组凸包系数拟合,即可获取较大的吸引域估计。最后,在满足平均驻留时间约束的条件下设计切换律,并设计状态反馈控制器,保证闭环系统渐近稳定。控制器的求解转化为线性矩阵不等式的可行性问题。仿真结果验证了所提方法的可行性和有效性。     

压电作动器的动态迟滞建模与H∞鲁棒控制

压电作动器具有率相关动态迟滞非线性特性,给传统建模和控制技术提出了挑战.本文针对压电作动器,提出了一种基于Bouc-Wen的Hammerstein率相关迟滞非线性模型,其中Bouc-Wen模型和线性动态模块分别用于描述系统的静态迟滞非线性特性和率相关特性.同时,构造了一个基于Bouc-Wen模型的迟滞补偿器,将迟滞补偿器与被控对象串联使系统线性化;并建立了不确定性系统模型,提出了一种H∞鲁棒跟踪控制方案,可以实现给定频率范围内单频率和复合频率参考信号的良好跟踪.实验结果表明,所建动态模型具有良好的泛化能力,跟踪控制相对误差小于8%,证明了所提出方法的有效性.     

存在飞轮安装偏差与故障的卫星姿态容错控制

基于滑模控制理论提出一种刚体卫星姿态稳定控制方法,实现对反作用飞轮部分失效故障的容错控制,以及对其安装偏差的补偿控制,并从理论上证明了所设计的控制器在有限时间内能够实现对闭环姿态控制系统的几乎全局渐近稳定控制.最后将所设计的控制器应用于某型卫星姿态稳定任务,仿真结果验证了所提出方法的有效性.     

新型动磁式直线振荡执行器的动子位移自传感

针对一种新型无内定子动磁式直线振荡执行器,在建立其机电系统数学模型的基础上,提出一种基于全维状态观测器的动子位移自传感算法。通过对执行器输入电压和输出电流信号的处理和计算来估算动子位移。仿真和实验结果均表明:在变压变频控制方式下,该算法能实现不同电气驱动频率下的动子位移自传感;采用该算法进行行程估算的绝对误差最大值为0.32 mm,相对误差最大值为2.6%。此算法可以满足直线压缩机和直线泵类负载的变行程控制要求。     

SVD‐Based Accurate Identification and Compensation of the Coupling Hysteresis and Creep Dynamics in Piezoelectric Actuators

In this paper, the coupling hysteresis and creep in piezoelectric actuators are identified and compensated for accurate tracking. First, we present the coupling hysteresis and creep model in smart actuators. Next, a complete identification strategy is designed according to the properties of the Preisach model. Then, an approach for parameter updating of the coupling model is provided. With the identified hysteresis and creep, the model‐based inversion compensation is designed. Finally, we apply the model identification and compensation to a piezoelectric stage to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. Significant reduction of the tracking error is achieved with the model‐based inversion feedforward compensator in which the relative errors at 10 Hz and 50 Hz are reduced to 1.85% and 4.53%, respectively. In addition, the model‐based feedforward is augmented with an integral feedback controller. With the composite controller, the relative errors at 10 Hz and 50 Hz are reduced to 0.42% and 3.04%, respectively.