Analysis on the Performance of the SLIP Runner with Nonlinear Spring Leg

The spring-loaded inverted pendulum(SLIP) has been widely studied in both animals and robots.Generally,the majority of the relevant theoretical studies deal with elastic leg,the linear leg length-force relationship of which is obviously conflict with the biological observations.A planar spring-mass model with a nonlinear spring leg is presented to explore the intrinsic mechanism of legged locomotion with elastic component.The leg model is formulated via decoupling the stiffness coefficient and exponent of the leg compression in order that the unified stiffness can be scaled as convex,concave as well as linear profile.The apex return map of the SLIP runner is established to investigate dynamical behavior of the fixed point.The basin of attraction and Floquet Multiplier are introduced to evaluate the self-stability and initial state sensitivity of the SLIP model with different stiffness profiles.The numerical results show that larger stiffness exponent can increase top speed of stable running and also can enlarge the size of attraction domain of the fixed point.In addition,the parameter variation is conducted to detect the effect of parameter dependency,and demonstrates that on the fixed energy level and stiffness profile,the faster running speed with larger convergence rate of the stable fixed point under small local perturbation can be achieved via decreasing the angle of attack and increasing the stiffness coefficient.The perturbation recovery test is implemented to judge the ability of the model resisting large external disturbance.The result shows that the convex stiffness performs best in enhancing the robustness of SLIP runner negotiating irregular terrain.This research sheds light on the running performance of the SLIP runner with nonlinear leg spring from a theoretical perspective,and also guides the design and control of the bio-inspired legged robot.

Distributed virtual environment-based safety control for Internet tele-robots

The inherent complexity and uncertainty of multi-operator multi-robot （MOMR） tele-operation system make its safeguard an essential problem. Hazardous factors in the system are analyzed using fault tree analysis（FTA） technology, and three-layer interactive safety architecture with information flow is designed in modules to control the factors according to the holistic control mode. After that, distributed virtual environment （DVE） including the characteristics of virtual guide （VG） technology is discussed to help the operators achieve some tasks through the visibility of control commands, time-delay, movement collision and operators＇ intentions. Finally an experiment is implemented to test the efficiency of safety control architecture by using two robots to place some building blocks in the same workspace.

Autonomous planning and control strategy for space manipulators with dynamics uncertainty based on learning from demonstrations

Autonomous planning is a significant development direction of the space manipulator,and learning from demonstrations(LfD)is a potential strategy for complex tasks in the field.However,separating control from planning may cause large torque fluctuations and energy consumptions,even instability or danger in control of space manipulators,especially for the planning based on the human demonstrations.Therefore,we present an autonomous planning and control strategy for space manipulators based on LfD and focus on the dynamics uncertainty problem,a common problem of actual manipulators.The process can be divided into three stages:firstly,we reproduced the stochastic directed trajectory based on the Gaussian process-based LfD;secondly,we built the model of the stochastic dynamics of the actual manipulator with Gaussian process;thirdly,we designed an optimal controller based on the dynamics model to obtain the improved commanded torques and trajectory,and used the separation theorem to deal with stochastic characteristics during control.We evaluated the strategy with locating pre-screwed bolts experiment by Tiangong-2 manipulator system on the ground.The result showed that,compared with other strategies,the strategy proposed in this paper could significantly reduce torque fluctuations and energy consumptions,and its precision can meet the task requirements.