Scorbot-ER 4U Using Forward Kinematics Modelling and Analysis

Robotic arm manipulators are widely used to accomplish many kinds of tasks. SCORBOT-ER 4u is a 5-degree of freedom (DOF) vertical articulated educational robotic arm, and all joints are revolute. It is specifically designed to perform pick and place task with its gripper. The pick and place task consists of consideration of the end effector coordinate of the robotic arm and the desired position coordinate in its workspace. This paper describes about forward kinematics modeling and analysis of the robotic end effector motion through joint space. The kinematics problems are defined by the transformation from the Cartesian space to the joint space. Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) model is used in order to model the robotic links and joints with 4x4 homogeneous matrix. The forward kinematics model is also developed and simulated in MATLAB. The mathematical model is validated by using robotic toolbox in MATLAB. By using this method, it may be applicable to get the end effector coordinate of this robotic arm and other similar types to this arm. The software development of SCORBOT-ER 4u is also described here. PC-and EtherCAT based control technology from BECKHOFF is used to control the arm to express the pick and place task.

Tracking Trajectory of a Cable-Driven Robot for Lower Limb Rehabilitation

This paper investigates and presents a cable-driven robot to lower limb rehabilitation use in sagittal plane. The presented rehabilitation robot is used for a trajectory tracking in joint space. The paper covers kinematic and dynamic analysis, which reveals the tensionability of the used cables as being the actuating source to provide a rehabilitation exercises of the human leg. The desired trajectory is generated to be used in the control system design in joint space. The obtained simulation results is showed to be efficient in this kind of application.

Robust Control of a High-Speed Manipulator in State Space

A robust control approach is proposed for a high speed manipulator using a hybrid computed torque control approach in the state space. The high-speed manipulator is driven by permanent magnet dc motors to track a trajectory in the joint space in the presence of disturbances. Tracking problem is analyzed in the state space where the completed models are considered for actuators. The proposed control approach can guarantee the stability and a satisfactory tracking performance. A two-link elbow manipulator driven by electrical actuators is simulated and results are shown to satisfy conditions under technical specifications.

PUMA 560 Optimal Trajectory Control using Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing and Generalized Pattern Search Techniques

Robot manipulators are highly coupled nonlinear systems, therefore real system and mathematical model of dynamics used for control system design are not same. Hence, fine-tuning of controller is always needed. For better tuning fast simulation speed is desired. Since, Matlab incorporates LAPACK to increase the speed and complexity of matrix computation, dynamics, forward and inverse kinematics of PUMA 560 is modeled on Matlab/Simulink in such a way that all operations are matrix based which give very less simulation time. This paper compares PID parameter tuning using Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing, Generalized Pattern Search (GPS) and Hybrid Search techniques. Controller performances for all these methods are compared in terms of joint space ITSE and cartesian space ISE for tracking circular and butterfly trajectories. Disturbance signal is added to check robustness of controller. GAGPS hybrid search technique is showing best results for tuning PID controller parameters in terms of ITSE and robustness.

Hybrid GA Tuned RBF Based Neuro-Fuzzy Controller for Robotic Manipulator

In this paper performance of Puma 560 manipulator is being compared for hybrid gradient descent and least square method learning based ANFIS controller with hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Generalized Pattern Search tuned radial basis function based Neuro-Fuzzy controller. ANFIS which is based on Takagi Sugeno type Fuzzy controller needs prior knowledge of rule base while in radial basis function based Neuro-Fuzzy rule base knowledge is not required. Hybrid Genetic Algorithm with generalized Pattern Search is used for tuning weights of radial basis function based Neuro- fuzzy controller. All the controllers are checked for butterfly trajectory tracking and results in the form of Cartesian and joint space errors are being compared. ANFIS based controller is showing better performance compared to Radial Basis Function based Neuro-Fuzzy Controller but rule base independency of RBF based Neuro-Fuzzy gives it an edge over ANFIS

Adaptive Fuzzy Control of Stewart Platform under Actuator Saturation

A novel adaptive fuzzy trajectory tracking algorithm of Stewart platform based motion platform is proposed to compensate path deviation and degradation of controller-s performance due to actuator torque limit. The algorithm can be divided into two parts: the real-time trajectory shaping part and the joint space adaptive fuzzy controller part. For a reference trajectory in task space whenever any of the actuators is saturated, the desired acceleration of the reference trajectory is modified on-line by using dynamic model of motion platform. Meanwhile an additional action with respect to the difference between the nominal and modified trajectories is utilized in the non-saturated region of actuators to reduce the path error. Using modified trajectory as input, the joint space controller incorporates compute torque controller, leg velocity observer and fuzzy disturbance observer with saturation compensation. It can ensure stability and tracking performance of controller in present of external disturbance and position only measurement. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of proposed control scheme.

Software Development for the Kinematic Analysis of a Lynx 6 Robot Arm

The kinematics of manipulators is a central problem in the automatic control of robot manipulators. Theoretical background for the analysis of the 5 Dof Lynx-6 educational Robot Arm kinematics is presented in this paper. The kinematics problem is defined as the transformation from the Cartesian space to the joint space and vice versa. The Denavit-Harbenterg (D-H) model of representation is used to model robot links and joints in this study. Both forward and inverse kinematics solutions for this educational manipulator are presented, An effective method is suggested to decrease multiple solutions in inverse kinematics. A visual software package, named MSG, is also developed for testing Motional Characteristics of the Lynx-6 Robot arm. The kinematics solutions of the software package were found to be identical with the robot arm-s physical motional behaviors.

Robot Cell Planning

A new approach to determine the machine layout in flexible manufacturing cell, and to find the feasible robot configuration of the robot to achieve minimum cycle time is presented in this paper. The location of the input/output location and the optimal robot configuration is obtained for all sequences of work tasks of the robot within a specified period of time. A more realistic approach has been presented to model the problem using the robot joint space. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem and solved using Sequential Quadratic Programming algorithm.

Optimal Straight Line Trajectory Generation in 3D Space using Deviation Algorithm

This paper presents an efficient method of obtaining a straight-line motion in the tool configuration space using an articulated robot between two specified points. The simulation results & the implementation results show the effectiveness of the method.

Heuristic Search Algorithms for Tuning PUMA 560 Fuzzy PID Controller

This paper compares the heuristic Global Search Techniques; Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Simulated Annealing, Generalized Pattern Search, genetic algorithm hybridized with Nelder–Mead and Generalized pattern search technique for tuning of fuzzy PID controller for Puma 560. Since the actual control is in joint space ,inverse kinematics is used to generate various joint angles correspoding to desired cartesian space trajectory. Efficient dynamics and kinematics are modeled on Matlab which takes very less simulation time. Performances of all the tuning methods with and without disturbance are compared in terms of ITSE in joint space and ISE in cartesian space for spiral trajectory tracking. Genetic Algorithm hybridized with Generalized Pattern Search is showing best performance.

Design and Trajectory Planning of Bipedal Walking Robot with Minimum Sufficient Actuation System

This paper presents a new type of mechanism and trajectory planning strategy for bipedal walking robot. The newly designed mechanism is able to improve the performance of bipedal walking robot in terms of energy efficiency and weight reduction by utilizing minimum number of actuators. The usage of parallelogram mechanism eliminates the needs of having an extra actuator at the knee joint. This mechanism works together with the joint space trajectory planning in order to realize straight legged walking which cannot be achieved by conventional inverse kinematics trajectory planning due to the singularity. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is confirmed by computer simulation results.