This paper proposes a method for transversal passing through singularities of corank 1, both for nonredundant and redundant robotic manipulators. The method modifies the Jacobian matrix of manipulator's forward kinematics to retrieve its full rank at singularities. Natural candidates for the Jacobian matrix modification are derivatives of determinants of full size sub-matrices of the Jacobian matrix. The method is illustrated with examples, including a PUMA manipulator and 2-link and 3-link planar manipulators. Some restrictions on the applicability of the method for nonredundant manipulators are also discussed.

In this paper we have proposed a numerical procedure for determining and evaluating the workspace of the eclipse robot architecture. The eclipse robot is a novel parallel architecture, which has been conceived and designed at the National Seoul University, Korea. The Eclipse robot design has been characterized in term of workspace characteristics, and optimum design solutions have been investigated as functions of the effect of design parameters on workspace.

In this paper a new robust adaptive control law for n-link robot manipulators with parametic uncertainties is derived using the Lyapunov theory thus guaranteed the stability of an uncertain system. The novelty of the adaptive robust control algorithm is that manipulator parameters and adaptive upper bounding functions are estimated to control the system properly, and the adaptive robust control law is also updated as an exponential function of manipulator kinematics, inertia parameters and tracking errors. The proposed adaptive control input includes a parameter estimation law as an adaptive controller and an additional control input vector as a robust controller. The developed approach has the advantages of both adaptive and robust control laws, without their discolour tags.

In this paper, the problem of tip position tracking control of a flexible-link manipulator is considered. Two neural network schemes are presented. In the first scheme, the controller is composed of a stabilizing joint PD controller and a neural network tracking controller. The objective is to simultaneously achieve hub-position tracking and control of the elastic deflections at the tip. In the second scheme, tracking control of a point along the arm is considered to avoid difficulties associated with the output feedback control of a non-minimum phase flexible manipulator. A separate neural network is employed for determining an appropriate output to be used for feedback. The controller is also composed of a neural network tracking controller and a stabilizing joint PD controller. Experimental results on a single-link flexible manipulator show that the proposed networks result in significant improvements in the system response with an increase in controller dynamic range despite changes in the desired trajectory.

Gripping of different types of objects with a multi-finger robot hand is a vital task for robot arms. Grippers, which are end effector elements in robot applications, are employed in various industrial operations such as transferring, assembling, welding and painting. However, if a gripper is considered for handling different jobs or to carry different types of parts in an assembly line, a general-purpose robot hand is going to be required. There are various technological actuators of robot hands such as electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic motors, etc. Besides these conventional actuators, it is possible to include Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) in the category of technological actuators. The SMA can give materials motion by moving to a predetermined position, at a specific temperature. The conversion of this motion to a gripping action of the robot hand is the heart of the matter. In this study, a robot hand is developed using Ni-Ti SMA and a set of experiments were performed in order to check the compatibility of the system in an industrial environment.

This paper concerns the issue of mechanism design of a simplified 6-DOF 6-RUS parallel manipulator. The design of robotic mechanisms, especially for 6-DOF parallel manipulators, is an important and challenging problem in the field of robotics. This paper presents a design method for robotic mechanisms, which is based on the physical model of the solution space. The physical model of the solution space, which can transfer a multi-dimensional problem to a two or three-dimensional one, is a useful tool to obtain all kinds of performance atlases. In this paper, the physical model of the solution space for spatial 6-RUS (R stands for revolute joint, U universal joint and S spherical joint) parallel manipulators is established. The atlases of performances, such as workspace and global conditioning index, are plotted in the physical model of the solution space. The atlases are useful for the mechanism design of the 6-RUS parallel manipulators. The technique used in this paper can be applied to the design of other robots.

A conservatism-reduced design of a gain scheduled output feedback H∞ controller for an n-joint rigid robotic manipulator, which integrates the varying-parameter rate without their feedback, is proposed. The robotic system is reduced to a 1inear parameter varying (LPV) form, which depends on the varying-parameter. By using a parameter-dependent Lyapunov function, the design of a controller, which satisfies the closed-loop H∞ performance, is reduced to a solution of the parameterized linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) of parameter matrices. With a use of the concept of “multi-convexity”, the solution of the infinite LMIs in the varying-parameter and its rate space is reduced to a solution of the finite LMIs for the vertex set. The proposed controller eliminates the feedback of the varying-parameter rate and fixes its upper boundary so that the conservatism of the controller design is reduced. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed design.

Most of the calibration methods proposed for the Stewart platform require complex computation or low noise data for the platform's accuracy to be determined. They are not suitable for practical use in a production environment, where the measurement and calibration method should be simple and robust. Using an external laser measuring device to determine the actual accuracy of a Stewart platform, a practical and simple leg length compensating calibration method, that improves the accuracy of the Stewart platform by a magnitude of around 7, is proposed. The procedures and computation algorithms of the calibration method are shown.

In this paper, a new method – named lumped kinetostatic modeling – to analyze the effect of the link flexibility on the mechanism's stiffness is provided. A new type of mechanism whose degree of freedom (dof) is dependent on a passive constraining leg connecting the base and the platform is introduced and analyzed. With the proposed kinetostatic model, a significant effect of the link flexibility on the mechanism's precision has been demonstrated. The influence of the change in structure parameters, including material properties, on the system behavior is discussed. In the paper, the geometric model of this kind of mechanism is first introduced. Then, a lumped kinetostatic model is proposed in order to account for joint and link compliances; some results and design guidelines are obtained. Finally, the optimization of the precision is addressed using a genetic algorithm.

In this paper we consider thc problem of optimal control design for off-line programming in educational assembly robotics. After introducing some key features for mechanical, electrical design systems and computer-control and programming of a prototype robot, we discuss the control system and the off-line programming for a case study of educational robotics. We propose a new Dynamic Optimal Time-Energy Trajectography (DOTET) controller based on the complete dynamic model of the robot and which takes into account intrinsic and extrinsic constraints, robot singularities and requirements of the task and the environment. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the efficiency of our design.

This paper presents an investigation into the development of parametric and non-parametric approaches for dynamic modelling of a flexible manipulator system. The least mean squares, recursive least squares and genetic algorithms are used to obtain linear parametric models of the system. Moreover, non-parametric models of the system are developed using a non-linear AutoRegressive process with eXogeneous input model structure with multi-layered perceptron and radial basis function neural networks. The system is in each case modelled from the input torque to hub-angle, hub-velocity and end-point acceleration outputs. The models are validated using several validation tests. Finally, a comparative assessment of the approaches used is presented and discussed in terms of accuracy, efficiency and estimation of the vibration modes of the system.

In parallel mechanisms, singular configurations (singularities) have to be avoided during motion. All the singularities should be located in order to avoid them. Hence, relationships involving all the singular platform poses (singularity locus) and the mechanism geometric parameters are useful in the design of parallel mechanisms. This paper presents a new expression of the singularity condition of the most general mechanism (6-6 FPM) of a class of parallel mechanisms usually named fully-parallel mechanisms (FPM). The presented expression uses the mixed products of vectors that are easy to be identified on the mechanism. This approach will permit some singularities to be geometrically found. A procedure, based on this new expression, is provided to transform the singularity condition into a ninth-degree polynomial equation whose unknowns are the platform pose parameters. This singularity polynomial equation is cubic in the platform position parameters and a sixth-degree one in the platform orientation parameters. Finally, how to derive the expression of the singularity condition of a specific FPM from the presented 6-6 FPM singularity condition will be shown along with an example.

In this paper, a lumped parameter model of a robotic fibre placement system consisting of a Motoman SK-120 robot, a force/torque sensor, a pneumatic actuator and a stiff workpiece holder is developed and experimentally verified for the purpose of predicting and characterising the dynamic behaviour of the fibre placement system. Special attention has been given to the dynamics of the actuator which is represented as a mass confined to move between two non-linear springs and dampers. The overall model containing manipulator, force sensor, pneumatic actuator and the workpiece holder dynamics is of the tenth order. Step response experiments were conducted to verify the model and to determine the approximate values of the parameters in the mathematical model. The results prove that the established model is accurate enough to explain the dynamic behaviour of the fibre placement system and it can be employed to quantify the influence of the dynamics of the pneumatic actuator on the constant force-based fibre placement. The well-known fact that the dynamics of the pneumatic actuator varies with the piston position has also been experimentally demonstrated.

Three single-valued upper boundary functions for velocity, acceleration and deceleration of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) are defined as closed mathematical forms over its entire spatial path. The limits deal with mechanical, kinematic and dynamic characteristics of the robot and with task and operating matters. These boundary functions can be computed making use of any robot model, as complex as is needed, since it works offline.

All studies are particularised for the robot RAM. A kinematic and a complete dynamic model of this WMR is built, with special attention on the study of wheel-ground contact efforts. For this purpose an empirical-analytical model of rubber wheel rolling is developed.

Robots are expected to be pervasive in the society in a not too distant future where they will work extensively as assistants of humans in various activities. With this in view, a novel affect-sensitive architecture for human-robot cooperation is presented in this paper where the robot is expected to recognize human psychological states. As a demonstration, an online heart rate variability analysis to infer the mental stress of a human engaged in a task is presented. This technique involves real-time heart rate monitoring, signal processing using both Fourier Transforrn and Wavelet Transform, and inferring the stress condition based on the level of activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems using fuzzy logic. Results from human subject trials are presented to validate the presented methodology. This stress detection technique is expected to be useful in the future human-robot cooperation activities, where the robot will recognize human stress and respond appropriately.

This paper presents a dynamic model of a planar parallel manipulator including structural flexibility of several linkages. The equations of motion are formulated using the Lagrangian equations of the first type and Lagrangian multipliers are introduced to represent the geometry of multiple closed loop chains. Then, an active damping approach using a PZT actuator is described to attenuate structural vibration of the linkages. Overall dynamic behavior of the manipulator, induced from structural flexibility of the linkage, is well illustrated through simulations. This analysis will be used to develop a prototype parallel manipulator.

In this paper, two different control methods are developed for an operator-assisted mobile robotic system for high load applications. For high load applications of mobile robots, an accurate tire model that considers wheel slip needs to be studied to achieve robustness of the system response. First, a simple operator-manipulator coordination system is developed based on explicit force control. Then, a position controller for the platform is designed to minimize the effect of wheel slip on control performance and integrated with the force controller for the operator-manipulator subsystem based on a motion coordination scheme. Then, a new type of human-robot coordination control method is developed, in which robust force control of the manipulator and impedance control of the mobile platform are integrated to achieve robust response and smooth interaction between the operator, the manipulator and the mobile platform. In simulation, the developed methods are compared for control performance on following the operator's motion intention.

In this paper, we present a simple method to obtain joint inputs needed to attain any point in the reachable workspace of a class of five-bar planar parallel manipulators which are based on five rigid links and five single degree of freedom joints – revolute and prismatic joints. Depending on the topology of the manipulators, two mathematical expressions describing the path traced by the tip of two links connected to each other are obtained and solved simultaneously in order to determine the intersection points of the two paths which are the Cartesian coordinates of the connection points for the links. For the class of manipulators considered in this study, one of the links is the link activated by an actuator fixed to the ground. So, rotational and/or translational joint inputs can be determined from the Cartesian coordinates of the tip of the activated links. Sylvester's dialytic elimination method is employed to solve the equations. Such a methodology is easy to implement, computationally efficient and sound to compute all possible solutions. A numerical example is provided for each manipulator and the inverse position solutions are verified by substituting them into forward position equations. It is concluded that the proposed method is useful in trajectory planning and control of five-bar planar parallel manipulators in joint space.

This paper presents a modified input shaping method to reduce the motion-induced vibration of a linear time-varying system after a rest-to-rest motion. Shaping parameters were obtained using the concept of modal-filtered impulse response. The conventional shaping method can be said just a special case of the proposed shaping method. The effectiveness of this proposing method was checked using some examples of both moderate and considerably fast time-varying systems. With a rest-to-rest motion control of a two-link flexible manipulator, this study also demonstrates that this method can be expanded to nonlinear cases.