Robust Control Design of Wheeled Inverted Pendulum Assistant Robot

This paper examines the design concept and mobile control strategy of the human assistant robot I-PENTAR(inverted pendulum type assistant robot). The motion equation is derived considering the non-holonomic constraint of the twowheeled mobile robot. Different optimal control approaches are applied to a linearized model of I-PENTAR. These include linear quadratic regulator(LQR), linear quadratic Gaussian control(LQG), H_2 control and H_∞ control. Simulation is performed for all the approaches yielding good performance results.

Discrete Event Net Based Modeling and Control System Design for Real-Time Concurrent Control of Multiple Robot Systems

This paper deals with control system design and implementation problems encountered in multiple robot systems. The methodology developed is depicted by a set of coordination mechanisms using hierarchical net structures and their accompanying rules. With the net models, the hierarchical and distributed control system is designed for an assembly task. Synchronization commands allow coordination of the movements of the robots. The net models make concurrency of the movements of the robots transparent to users. The net based machine controller executes robot motion control through the communication with the external robot controller using the command/response concept. Sensory signals indicating the change of state of robots are used to trigger or initiate tasks. Simultaneous movement of the robots is obtained by creating different background threads running in parallel under Windows OS. The multilevel hierarchical control system can be consistently constructed using net models.

Research on Self-balancing Two Wheels Mobile Robot Control System Analysis

The paper presents the research on self-balancing two-wheels mobile robot control system analysis with experimental studies.The research problem in this work is to stabilize the mobile robot with self-control and to carry the sensitive things without failing in a long span period.The main objective of this study is to focus on the mathematical modelling of mobile robot from laboratory scale to real world applications.The numerical expression with mathematical modelling is very important to control the mobile robot system with linearization.The fundamental concepts of dynamic system stability were utilized for maintaining the stability of the constructed mobile robot system.The controller design is also important for checking the stability and the appropriate controller design is proportional,integral,and derivative-PID controller and Linear Quadratic Regulator(LQR).The steady state error could be reduced by using such kind of PID controller.The simulation of numerical expression on mathematical modeling was conducted in MATLAB environments.The confirmation results from the simulation techniques were applied to construct the hardware design of mobile robot system for practical study.The results from simulation approaches and experimental approaches are matched in various kinds of analyses.The constructed mobile robot system was designed and analyzed in the control system design laboratory of Yangon Technological University(YTU).

A Hyper-redundant Elephant’s Trunk Robot with an Open Structure:Design,Kinematics,Control and Prototype

As for the complex operational tasks in the unstructured environment with narrow workspace and numerous obstacles,the traditional robots cannot accomplish these mentioned complex operational tasks and meet the dexterity demands.The hyper-redundant bionic robots can complete complex tasks in the unstructured environments by simulating the motion characteristics of the elephant’s trunk and octopus tentacles.Compared with traditional robots,the hyper-redundant bionic robots can accomplish complex tasks because of their flexible structure.A hyper-redundant elephant’s trunk robot(HRETR)with an open structure is developed in this paper.The content includes mechanical structure design,kinematic analysis,virtual prototype simulation,control system design,and prototype building.This design is inspired by the flexible motion of an elephant’s trunk,which is expansible and is composed of six unit modules,namely,3UPS-PS parallel in series.First,the mechanical design of the HRETR is completed according to the motion characteristics of an elephant’s trunk and based on the principle of mechanical bionic design.After that,the backbone mode method is used to establish the kinematic model of the robot.The simulation software SolidWorks and ADAMS are combined to analyze the kinematic characteristics when the trajectory of the end moving platform of the robot is assigned.With the help of ANSYS,the static stiffness of each component and the whole robot is analyzed.On this basis,the materials of the weak parts of the mechanical structure and the hardware are selected reasonably.Next,the extensible structures of software and hardware control system are constructed according to the modular and hierarchical design criteria.Finally,the prototype is built and its performance is tested.The proposed research provides a method for the design and development for the hyper-redundant bionic robot.

Design and motion control analysis of double helix wall climbing robot

For the detection environment of complex walls such as high-rise buildings,a double helix wall climbing robot(DHWCR)with strong adsorption force and good stability is designed and developed,which uses symmetrical propellers to provide adsorption force.The symmetrical driving structure can provide smooth thrust for the DHWCR,so that the robot can be absorbed to the wall surface with different roughness.A left and right control frame with multiple degrees of freedom is designed,which can adjust the fixed position of the brushless propeller motor in the front and back directions,realize the continuous adjustable thrust direction of the robot,and improve the flexibility of the robot movement.Using the front wheel steering mechanism with universal joint,the steering control of the DHWCR is realized by differential control.In the vertical to ground transition,the front and rear brushless motors can provide the pull up and oblique thrust,so that the DHWCR can smoothly transition to the vertical wall.The motion performance and adaptability of the DHWCR in the horizontal ground and vertical wall environment are tested.The results show that the DHWCR can switch motion between the horizontal ground and vertical wall,and can stably adsorb on the vertical wall with flexible attitude control.The DHWCR can move at a fast speed.The speed on the horizontal ground is higher than that on the vertical wall,which verifies the feasibility and reliability of the DHWCR moving stably on the vertical wall.

Adaptive Fuzzy Backstepping Tracking Control for Flexible Robotic Manipulator

In this paper,an adaptive fuzzy state feedback control method is proposed for the single-link robotic manipulator system.The considered system contains unknown nonlinearfunction and actuator saturation.Fuzzy logic systems(FLSs)and a smooth function are used to approximate the unknownnonlinearities and the actuator saturation,respectively.By com-bining the command-filter technique with the backsteppingdesign algorithm,a novel adaptive fuuzy tracking backsteppingcontrol method is developed.It is proved that the adaptive fuuzycontrol scheme can guarantee that all the variables in the closed-loop system are bounded,and the system output can track thegiven reference signal as close as possible.Simulation results areprovided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The Impulse Excitation Joint Servo Drive Design and Adaptive Backstepping Control of Humanoid Robots

This study aims to explore the humanoid robot joint servo drive integration design and adaptive backstepping control. To make the humanoid robot have explosive power as the human does, simply increasing the power output of the motor of a lightweight design cannot meet the demand of moving heavy objects and so on. Moreover, the backstepping control algorithm is designed to implement the dual-arm cooperative control. The joint servo drive is redesigned in the present study, which can drive the motor at a limitation state when needed output high-voltage pulse can stimulate the motor so that the motor can produce an instantaneous large torque. A miniature design scheme is presented in this study for the servo drive, explaining the design method of each part module. The ex- perimental data illustrate that the servo drive can produce an output torque greater than the rate of the high-voltage pulse that stimulates the motor. Knowledge of the control of humanoid robot moving a heavy object has important practical significance. The present study provides a complete actual problem and exhibits a real practical use case which can be used to speed up the explosive humanoid robot arms.

Optimal design and motion control of biomimetic robotic fish

This paper is concerned with the design, optimization, and motion control of a radiocontrolled, multi-link, free-swimming biomimetic robotic fish based on an optimized kinematic and dynamic model of fish swimming. The performance of the robotic fish is determined by both the fish＇s morphological characteristics and kinematic parameters. By applying ichthyologic theories of propulsion, a design framework that takes into consideration both mechatronic constraints in physical realization and feasibility of control methods is presented, under which a multiple linked robotic fish that integrates both the carangiform and anguilliform swimming modes can be easily developed. Taking account of both theoretic hydrodynamic issues and practical problems in engineering realization, the optimal link-lengthratios are numerically calculated by an improved constrained cyclic variable method, which are successfully applied to a series of real robotic fishes. The rhythmic movements of swimming are driven by a central pattern generator （CPG） based on nonlinear oscillations, and up-and-down motion by regulating the rotating angle of pectoral fins. The experimental results verify that the presented scheme and method are effective in design and implementation.

MODELING AND CONTROL DESIGN OF AN ANGUILLIFORM ROBOTIC FISH

In this paper,the modeling and control design of a biomimetic robotic fish is presented.The Anguilliform robotic fish consists of N links and N−1 joints,and the driving forces are the torques applied to the joints.Considering kinematic constraints,Lagrangian formulation is used to obtain the dynamics of the fish model.The computed torque control method is applied first,which can provide satisfactory tracking responses for fish joints.Since this robotic fish is essentially an underactuated system,the reference trajectories for the orientation of the N links are planned in such a way that,at a neighborhood of the equilibrium point,the tracking task of N angles can be achieved by using N−1 joint torques.To deal with parameter uncertainties that exist in the actual environment,sliding mode control is adopted.Considering feasibility and complexity issues,a simplified sliding mode control algorithm is given.A four-link robotic fish is modeled and simulated,and the results validate the effectiveness of reference planning and the proposed controllers.

Settling Time Design and Parameter Tuning Methods for Finite-Time P-PI Control

High precision position control and high speed control of the robot manipulators are fundamental and important control problems. The effectiveness of finite-time P-PI control was confirmed by end-effector position control of robot manipulators. However, parameter tuning method has not been proposed to finite-time P-PI control. In this paper, we propose a settling time design method and a parameter tuning method for the finite-time P-PI control. The effectiveness of the proposed parameter tuning method is confirmed by experiments of end-effcctor position control of a robot manipulator.

Design and Development of a Competitive Low-Cost Robot Arm with Four Degrees of Freedom

The main focus of this work was to design, develop and implementation of competitively robot arm with en- hanced control and stumpy cost. The robot arm was designed with four degrees of freedom and talented to accomplish accurately simple tasks, such as light material handling, which will be integrated into a mobile platform that serves as an assistant for industrial workforce. The robot arm is equipped with several servo motors which do links between arms and perform arm movements. The servo motors include encoder so that no controller was implemented. To control the robot we used Labview, which performs inverse kinematic calculations and communicates the proper angles serially to a microcontroller that drives the servo motors with the capability of modifying position, speed and acceleration. Testing and validation of the robot arm was carried out and results shows that it work properly.

Motion simulation and experiment of a novel modular self-reconfigurable robot

Based on the character of the modular self-reconfigurable （MSR） robot, a novel homogeneous and lattice MSR robot, M-Cubes, was designed. Each module unit of the robot has 12 freedoms and is composed of six rotary joints and one cubic link. An attached/detached mechanism was designed on the rotary joints. A novel space transmitting system was placed on the inner portion of the cubic link. A motor separately transmitted torque to the six joints which were distributed equally on six surfaces of the cubic link. The example of a basic motion for the module was demonstrated. The result shows that the robot is concise and compact in structure, highly efficient in transmission, credible in connecting, and simple in controlling. At the same time, a simulator is developed to graphically design the system configuration, the reconfiguration process and the motion of cluster modules. The character of local action for the cellular automata （CA） is utilized. Each module is simplified as a cell. The transition rules of the CA are developed to combine with the genetic algorithm （GA） and applied to each module to accomplish distributed control. Simulation proves that the method is effective and feasible.

Biomimetic Design and Optimal Swing of a Hexapod Robot Leg

Biological inspiration has spawned a wealth of solutions to both mechanical design and control schemes in the efforts to develop agile legged machines. This paper presents a compliant leg mechanism for a small six-legged robot, HITCR-ll, based on abstracted anatomy from insect legs. Kinematic structure, relative proportion of leg segment lengths and actuation system were analyzed in consideration of anatomical structure as well as muscle system of insect legs and desired mobility. A spring based passive compliance mechanism inspired by musculoskeletal structures of biological systems was integrated into distal segment of the leg to soften foot impact on touchdown. In addition, an efficient locomotion planner capable of generating natural movements for the legs during swing phase was proposed. The problem of leg swing was formulated as an optimal control procedure that satisfies a series of locomotion task terms while minimizing a biologically-based objective function, which was solved by a Gauss Pseudospectral Method （GPM） based numerical technique. We applied this swing generation algorithm to both a simulation platform and a robot prototype. Results show that the proposed leg structure and swing planner are able to successfully perform effective swing movements on rugged terrains.

A Review on Cable-driven Parallel Robots

Cable-driven parallel robots(CDPRs) are categorized as a type of parallel manipulators. In CDPRs, flexible cables are used to take the place of rigid links. The particular property of cables provides CDPRs several advantages, including larger workspaces, higher payload-to-weight ratio and lower manufacturing costs rather than rigid-link robots. In this paper, the history of the development of CDPRs is introduced and several successful latest application cases of CDPRs are presented. The theory development of CDPRs is introduced focusing on design, performance analysis and control theory. Research on CDPRs gains wide attention and is highly motivated by the modern engineering demand for large load capacity and workspace. A number of exciting advances in CDPRs are summarized in this paper since it is proposed in the 1980 s, which points to a fruitful future both in theory and application. In order to meet the increasing requirements of robot in different areas, future steps foresee more in-depth research and extension applications of CDPRs including intelligent control, composite materials, integrated and reconfigurable design.

A Review on Lower Limb Rehabilitation Exoskeleton Robots

Lower limb rehabilitation exoskeleton robots integrate sensing, control, and other technologies and exhibit the characteristics of bionics, robotics, information and control science, medicine, and other interdisciplinary areas. In this review, the typical products and prototypes of lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robots are introduced and stateof-the-art techniques are analyzed and summarized. Because the goal of rehabilitation training is to recover patients’ sporting ability to the normal level, studying the human gait is the foundation of lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot research. Therefore, this review critically evaluates research progress in human gait analysis and systematically summarizes developments in the mechanical design and control of lower limb rehabilitation exoskeleton robots. From the performance of typical prototypes, it can be deduced that these robots can be connected to human limbs as wearable forms;further, it is possible to control robot movement at each joint to simulate normal gait and drive the patient’s limb to realize robot-assisted rehabilitation training. Therefore human–robot integration is one of the most important research directions, and in this context, rigid-flexible-soft hybrid structure design, customized personalized gait generation, and multimodal information fusion are three key technologies.

An iterative learning method for realizing accurate dynamic feedforward control of an industrial hybrid robot

Feedforward control based on an accurate dynamic model is an effective approach to reduce the dynamic effect of the robot and improve its performance. However, due to the complicated work environment with considerable uncertainty, it is difficult to obtain a high-precision dynamic model of the robot, which severely deteriorates the achievable control performance. This paper proposes an iterative learning method to accurately design the industrial feedforward controller and compensate for the external uncertain dynamic load of the robot. Based on a standard dynamic model, a complete linear feedforward controller is presented.An iterative design strategy is given to iteratively update the feedforward controller by combining the Moore-Penrose Inverse and the PID learning rate. Experiments are carried out on a 5-DOF industrial hybrid robot to validate the effectiveness of the proposed iterative learning method. The experiment results illustrate that the industrial feedforward controller can rapidly converge to the optimal controller and significantly improve the servo performance by using the proposed method. This paper provides an effective method for applying iterative learning control to an unopened industrial control system. It is very useful for the practical control of hybrid robots in industrial field.

A survey of the development of quadruped robots: Joint configuration, dynamic locomotion control method and mobile manipulation approach

Some quadruped robots developed recently show better dynamic performance and environmental adaptability than ever, and have been preliminarily applied in the field of emergency disposal, military reconnaissance and infrastructure construction. The development route, mechanisms design, control methods and mobile manipulating approaches of the quadruped robots are surveyed in this article. Firstly, the development route of the quadruped robot is combed, as the references of the forecast of the future work on quadruped robots. Then the bionic structure and the motion control method of the quadruped robot is summarized, the advantages and disadvantages are analyzed in aspects of gait switching, terrain adaption and disturbance resistance. Subsequently, aiming at the mobile manipulation of the quadruped robot, the representative leg-arm collaborative robots and the multi-task-oriented Whole-body Control (WBC) methods are introduced. Finally, the summary and future work of the quadruped robots is given.

Optimal Variable Stiffness Control and Its Applications in Bionic Robotic Joints:A Review

Variable Stiffness Actuation(VSA)is an efficient,safe,and robust actuation technology for bionic robotic joints that have emerged in recent decades.By introducing a variable stiffness elastomer in the actuation system,the mechanical-electric energy conversion between the motor and the load could be adjusted on-demand,thereby improving the performance of the actuator,such as the peak power reduction,energy saving,bionic actuation,etc.At present,the VSA technology has achieved fruitful research results in designing the actuator mechanism and the stiffness adjustment servo,which has been widely applied in articulated robots,exoskeletons,prostheses,etc.However,how to optimally control the stiffness of VSAs in different application scenarios for better actuator performance is still challenging,where there is still a lack of unified cognition and viewpoints.Therefore,from the perspective of optimal VSA performance,this paper first introduces some typical structural design and servo control techniques of common VSAs and then explains the methods and applications of the Optimal Variable Stiffness Control(OVSC)approaches by theoretically introducing different types of OVSC mathematical models and summarizing OVSC methods with varying optimization goals and application scenarios or cases.In addition,the current research challenges of OVSC methods and possible innovative insights are also presented and discussed in-depth to facilitate the future development of VSA control.

Data Driven Vibration Control:A Review

With the ongoing advancements in sensor networks and data acquisition technologies across various systems like manufacturing,aviation,and healthcare,the data driven vibration control(DDVC)has attracted broad interests from both the industrial and academic communities.Input shaping(IS),as a simple and effective feedforward method,is greatly demanded in DDVC methods.It convolves the desired input command with impulse sequence without requiring parametric dynamics and the closed-loop system structure,thereby suppressing the residual vibration separately.Based on a thorough investigation into the state-of-the-art DDVC methods,this survey has made the following efforts:1)Introducing the IS theory and typical input shapers;2)Categorizing recent progress of DDVC methods;3)Summarizing commonly adopted metrics for DDVC;and 4)Discussing the engineering applications and future trends of DDVC.By doing so,this study provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of existing DDVC methods from designing to optimizing perspectives,aiming at promoting future research regarding this emerging and vital issue.

Mechanical Design and Dynamic Compliance Control of Lightweight Manipulator

In the existing modular joint design and control methods of collaborative robots, the inertia of the manipulator link is large,the dynamic trajectory planning ability is weak, the collision stop safety strategy is dependent, and the adaptability and safety to the changing environment are limited. This paper develops a six-degree-of-freedom lightweight collaborative manipulator with real-time dynamic trajectory planning and active compliance control. Firstly, a novel motor installation, joint transmission, and link design method is put forward to reduce the inertia of the links and improve intrinsic safety. At the same time, to enhance the dynamic operation capability and quick response of the manipulator, a smooth planning of position and orientation under initial/end pose and velocity constraints is proposed. The adaptability to the environment is improved by the active compliance control. Finally, experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed design, planning, and control methods.