In this paper, a force and torque controller for aerial manipulation is developed using an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a robotic arm to interact near or on a vertical surface such as a wall. Control of aerial manipulators interacting with the environment is a challenging task due to dynamic interactions between aerial vehicles, robotic arms, and environment. To achieve this, modeling of aerial manipulators is first investigated and presented considering interaction with the environment. Nonlinear models of generic aerial manipulators, as well as of a prototype aerial manipulator composed of a hexacopter with a three-joint robotic arm, are established. An equilibrium-based force and torque controller is developed to conduct tasks that require the aerial manipulator to exert forces and torques on a wall. Simulations and experiments validate the performance of the controller that successfully applies desired forces and torques to an object fixed on a wall while flying near the wall.

In order to solve joint-angle drift problem of dual redundant manipulators at acceleration-level, an acceleration-level tri-criteria optimization motion planning (ALTC-OMP) scheme is proposed, which combines the minimum acceleration norm, repetitive motion planning, and infinity-norm acceleration minimization solutions via weighting factor. This scheme can resolve the joint-angle drift problem of dual redundant manipulators which will arise in single criteria or bi-criteria scheme. In addition, the proposed scheme considers joint-velocity joint-acceleration physical limits. The proposed scheme can not only guarantee joint-velocity and joint-acceleration within their physical limits, but also ensure that final joint-velocity and joint-acceleration are near to zero. This scheme is realized by dual redundant manipulators which consist of left and right manipulators. In order to ensure the coordinated operation of manipulators, two motion planning problems are reformulated as two general quadratic program (QP) problems and further unified into one standard QP problem, which is solved by a simplified linear-variational-inequalities-based primal-dual neural network at the acceleration-level. Computer-simulation results based on dual PUMA560 redundant manipulators further demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed ALTC-OMP scheme to resolve joint-angle drift problem arising in the dual redundant manipulators.

The 3 degree-of-freedom Gantry-Tau manipulator with the addition of the spherical wrist mechanism which is called Gantry-Tau-3R is designed as a high-G simulation-based motion platform (SBMP) with the capability of generating the large linear and angular displacement. The combination of both parallel and serial manipulator in newly designed Gantry-Tau-3R mechanism improves the ability of the mechanism to regenerate larger motion signals with higher linear acceleration and angular velocity. The high-frequency signals are reproduced using the parallel part of the mechanism, and sustainable low-frequency accelerations are regenerated via the serial part due to the larger rotational motion capability, which will be used through motion cueing algorithm tilt coordination channel. The proportional integral derivative (PID) and fuzzy incremental controller (FIC) are developed for the proposed mechanism to show the high path tracking performance as a motion platform. FIC reduces the motion tracking error of the newly designed Gantry-Tau-3R and increases the motion fidelity for the users of the proposed SBMP. The proposed method is implemented using Matlab/Simulink software. Finally, the results demonstrate the accurate motion signal generation using linear model predictive motion cues with a fuzzy controller, which is not possible using the common parallel and serial manipulators.

Path planning on a two-dimensional grid is a well-studied problem in robotics. It usually involves searching for a shortest path between two vertices on a grid given that some of the grid cells are impassable (occupied by obstacles). Single-source path planning finds shortest paths from a given source vertex to all other vertices of the grid. Singles-source path planning enhances robot autonomy by calculating multiple possible paths for various navigation scenarios when the destination state is unknown. A high-performance algorithm for single-source any-angle path planning on a grid called CWave is proposed here. Any-angle attribute implies that the algorithm calculates paths which can include line segments at any angle, as opposed to standard A* that runs on an 8-connected graph, which permits turns with 45° increments only. The key idea of CWave is to abandon the graph model and operate directly on the grid geometry using discrete geometric primitives (instead of individual vertices) to represent the wave front. In its most basic form (CWaveInt), CWave requires only integer arithmetics. CWaveInt, however, can accumulate the distance error at turning points. A modified version of CWave (CWaveFpuSrc) with minimal usage of floating-point calculations is also developed to eliminate any accumulative errors, which is proven mathematically and experimentally on several maps. The performance of the algorithm on most of the tested maps is demonstrated to be significantly faster than that of Theta*, Lazy Theta*, Field A*, ANYA, Block A*, and A* adapted for single-source planning (on maps with lower number of isolated obstacles, CWaveFpuSrc is 2−3 times faster than its fastest tested alternative Block A*). An N-threaded implementation (CWaveN) of CWave is presented and tested to demonstrate an improved performance (multithreaded implementation is 1.5−3 times faster than single-threaded CWave). The paper discusses foundations and experimental validation of CWave, and presents future work to address the limitations of the current implementations and obtain further performance enhancements.

The article proposes a nonlinear optimal control method for the model of the wheeled inverted pendulum (WIP). This is a difficult control and robotics problem due to the system’s strong nonlinearities and due to its underactuation. First, the dynamic model of the WIP undergoes approximate linearization around a temporary operating point which is recomputed at each time step of the control method. The linearization procedure makes use of Taylor series expansion and of the computation of the associated Jacobian matrices. For the linearized model of the wheeled pendulum, an optimal (H-infinity) feedback controller is developed. The controller’s gain is computed through the repetitive solution of an algebraic Riccati equation at each iteration of the control algorithm. The global asymptotic stability properties of the control method are proven through Lyapunov analysis. Finally, by using the H-infinity Kalman Filter as a robust state estimator, the implementation of a state estimation-based control scheme becomes also possible.

Many medical procedures such as brachytherapy, thermal ablations, and biopsies are performed using needle-based procedures. In this work, 3D manipulation of an active needle realized by multiple Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators was first predicted by Finite Element Analyses (FEA), and then demonstrated by a fabricate prototype. The FEA results were validated by planar deflection of an active needle. A similar FEA was developed to predict 3D manipulation of the active needle. For 17-gage needle, a maximum of 26° reversible deflection was achieved in 3D space via actuation forces of a 0.127 mm SMA wire. A scaled prototype was also developed and tested to show the feasibility of developing a 3D steering active needle with multiple actuators.

The topological structure of a parallel manipulator (PM) determines its intrinsic topological properties (TPs). The TPs further determine essential kinematic and dynamic properties of the mechanism. TPs can be expressed through topological characteristics indexes (TCI). Therefore, defining a set of TCIs is an important issue to evaluate the TPs of PMs. This article addresses the evaluation of topological properties (ETP) of PMs based on TCI. A general and effective ETP method for PMs is proposed. Firstly, 12 TCIs are proposed, including 8 quantitative TCIs, that is, position and orientation characteristics sets (POC), dimension of the POC set, degrees of freedom (DOF), number of independent displacement equations, types and number of an Assur kinematic chain (AKC), coupling degrees of the AKCs, degrees of redundancy and the number of overs; as well as 4 qualitative TCIs, that is, selection of actuated joints, identification of inactive joints, DOF type and Input–Output motion decoupling. Secondly, the ETP method is illustrated by evaluating some well-known PMs including the Delta, Tricept, Exechon, Z3, H4 and the Gough–Stewart platform manipulators, as well as 28 other typical PMs. Via the ETP analysis of these mechanisms also some valuable design knowledge is derived and guidelines for the design of PMs are established. Finally, a 5-DOF decoupled hybrid spraying robot is developed by applying the design knowledge and the design guidelines derived from the ETP analysis.

We propose a novel formal approach to robust motion planning (MP) in dynamic environments based on reachability analysis. While traditional MP methods usually fail to provide formal robust safety and performance guarantees, our approach provably ensures safe task achievement in time-varying and adversarial environments under parametric uncertainty. We leverage recent results on Hamilton–Jacobi (HJ) reachability and differential games in order to compute offline guaranteed motion plans that are compatible with the sampled-data (SD) paradigm. Also, we synthesize online provably robust safety-preserving and target-reaching feedback controls. Unlike earlier applications of reachability analysis to MP, our methodology handles arbitrary time-varying constraints, adversarial agents such as pursuing obstacles or evading targets, and takes into account the robot’s configuration. Furthermore, we use HJ projections in order to reduce significantly the computational burden without trading off safety guarantees. The validity of this approach is demonstrated through the case study of a robot arm subject to measurement errors, which is tasked with safely reaching a goal in a known time-varying workspace while avoiding capture by an unpredictable pursuer. Finally, the performance of the approach and research perspectives are discussed.

This paper presents a novel robust hybrid fractional order proportional derivative sliding mode controller (HFOPDSMC) for 2-degree of freedom (2-DOF) robot manipulator based on extended grey wolf optimizer (EGWO). Sliding mode controller (SMC) is remarkably robust against the uncertainties and external disturbances and shows the valuable properties of accuracy. In this paper, a new fractional order sliding surface (FOSS) is defined. Integrating the fractional order proportional derivative controller (FOPDC) and a new sliding mode controller (FOSMC), a novel robust controller based on HFOPDSMC is proposed. The bounded model uncertainties are considered in the dynamics of the robot, and then the robustness of the controller is verified. The Lyapunov theory is utilized in order to show the stability of the proposed controller. In this paper, the EGWO is developed by adding the emphasis coefficients to the typical grey wolf optimizer (GWO). The GWO and EGWO, then, are applied to optimize the proposed control parameters which result in the optimized GWO-HFOPDSMC and EGWO-HFOPDSMC, respectively. The effectivenesses of the optimized controllers (GWO-HFOPDSMC and EGWO-HFOPDSMC) are completely verified by comparing the simulation results of the optimized controllers with the typical FOSMC and HFOPDSMC.

In this paper, a multilayer feedforward neural network (NN) is designed and trained, for human–robot collisions detection, using only the intrinsic joint position sensors of a manipulator. The topology of one NN is designed considering the coupled dynamics of the robot and trained, with and without external contacts, by Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm to detect unwanted collisions of the human operator with the manipulator and the link that is collided. The proposed approach could be applied to any industrial robot, where only the joint position signals are available. The designed NN is compared quantitatively and qualitatively with an NN, where both the intrinsic joint position and the torque sensors of the manipulator are used. The proposed method is evaluated experimentally with the KUKA LWR manipulator, which is considered as an example of the collaborative robots, using two of its joints in a planar horizontal motion. The results illustrate that the developed system is efficient and fast to detect the collisions and identify the collided link.

Constrained motion is essential for varying robotics tasks, especially in surgical robotics, for instance, the case of minimally invasive interventions. This article proposes generic formulations of the classical bilateral constrained motion (i.e., when the incision hole has almost the same diameter as that of the tool) as well as unilaterally constrained motion (i.e., when the hole incision has a larger diameter compared to the tool diameter). One of the latter constraints is combined with another surgical task such as incision/ablation or suturing a wound (modeled here by 3D geometric paths). The developed control methods based on the hierarchical task approach are able to manage simultaneously the constrained motion (depending on the configuration case, i.e., bilateral or unilateral constraint) and a 3D path following. In addition, the proposed methods can operate with both straight or curved surgical tools. The proposed methods were successfully validated in various scenarios. Foremost, a simulation framework was proposed to access the performances of each proposed controller. Thereafter, several experimental validations were carried out. Both the simulation and experimental results have demonstrated the relevance of the proposed approach, as well as promising performances in terms of behavior as well as accuracy.

The aim of the virtual torsion sensor (VTS) is to observe the nonlinear deflection in the flexible joints of robotic manipulators and, by its use, improve positioning control of the joint load. This model-based approach utilizes the motor-side sensing only and, therefore, replaces the load-side encoders at nearly zero hardware costs. For being applied in the closed control loop, the stability and robustness of VTS are most crucial. This work extends the previous analysis by a general case of nonlinear joint stiffness with hysteresis and provides straightforward conditions with respect to the system dynamics. The dissipativity and passivity of the torsion-torque hysteresis map are analyzed and discussed in detail. The absolute stability of VTS inclusion into position control loop is shown based on the equivalent loop transformations and Popov criteria, including the sector conditions. Illustrative numerical examples of the control error dynamics and its convergence are provided.

In recent years, mobile robots have become increasingly frequent in daily life applications, such as cleaning, surveillance, support for the elderly and people with disabilities, as well as hazardous activities. However, a big challenge arises when the robotic system must perform a fully autonomous mission. The main problems of autonomous missions include path planning, localisation, and mapping. Thus, this research proposes a hybrid methodology for mobile robots on an autonomous mission involving an offline approach that uses the Direct-DRRT* algorithm and the artificial potential fields algorithm as the online planner. The experimental design covers three scenarios with an increasing degree of accuracy in respect of the real world. Additionally, an extensive evaluation of the proposed methodology is reported.

Fossil fuel sources are well suited to fulfill the energy needs of human beings. Unfortunately, there are some limitations and disadvantages pertaining to fossil fuels, some of which are drastic. The main issues are: firstly, there is a finite supply of these fuels, eventually this supply will be exhausted; secondly, burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming, leading to disastrous consequences for the environment and the health of humans. Switching to renewable energy sources is the viable solution to the aforementioned issues. Robots bring numerous benefits in a wide variety of applications. Introducing robots to production environments and other applications results in a remarkable improvement in terms of productivity and efficiency. In this paper, the integration between robots and renewable energy sources is discussed. In other words, two main points are investigated: (1) how can renewable energy be a viable source of energy for robots and (2) how can the renewable energy industry benefit from utilizing robots in the execution of renewable energy-related tasks. Some of the recent developments concerning the integration between robots and renewable energy are reviewed. In addition, more opportunities and expected advancements are also discussed.

This paper presents a vision-based path planning strategy that aims to reduce the computational time required by a robot to find a feasible path from a starting point to the goal point. The proposed algorithm presents a novel strategy that can be implemented on any well-known path planning algorithm such as A*, D* and probabilistic roadmap (PRM), to improve the swiftness of these algorithms. This path planning algorithm is suitable for real-time scenarios since it reduces the computational time compared to the basis and traditional algorithms. To test the proposed path planning strategy, a tracking control strategy is implemented on a mobile platform. This control strategy consists of three major stages. The first stage deals with gathering information about the surrounding environment using vision techniques. In the second stage, a free-obstacle path is generated using the proposed reduced scheme. In the final stage, a Lyapunov kinematic tracking controller and two Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based-controllers are implemented to track the proposed path by adjusting the rotational and linear velocity of the robot. The proposed path planning strategy is tested on a Pioneer P3-DX differential wheeled mobile robot and an Xtion PRO depth camera. Experimental results prove the efficiency of the proposed path planning scheme, which was able to reduce the computational time by a large percentage which reached up to 88% of the time needed by the basis and traditional scheme, without significant adverse effect on the workability of the basis algorithm. Moreover, the proposed path planning algorithm has improved the path efficiency, in terms of the path length and trackability, challenging the traditional trade-off between swiftness and path efficiency.

Visual homing is a local navigation technique used to direct a robot to a previously seen location by comparing the image of the original location with the current visual image. Prior work has shown that exploiting depth cues such as image scale or stereo-depth in homing leads to improved homing performance. While it is not unusual to use a panoramic field of view (FOV) camera in visual homing, it is unusual to have a panoramic FOV stereo-camera. So, while the availability of stereo-depth information may improve performance, the concomitant-restricted FOV may be a detriment to performance, unless specialized stereo hardware is used. In this paper, we present an investigation of the effect on homing performance of varying the FOV widths in a stereo-vision-based visual homing algorithm using a common stereo-camera. We have collected six stereo-vision homing databases – three indoor and three outdoor. Based on over 350,000 homing trials, we show that while a larger FOV yields performance improvements for larger homing offset angles, the relative improvement falls off with increasing FOVs, and in fact decreases for the widest FOV tested. We conduct additional experiments to identify the cause of this fall-off in performance, which we term the ‘blinder’ effect, and which we predict should affect other correspondence-based visual homing algorithms.

Geometric accuracy is a critical performance factor for parallel robots, and regardless of error compensation, accuracy design or tolerance allocation is another way to ensure the pose accuracy of a robot at design stage. A general method of both geometric error modeling and accuracy design of lower-mobility parallel mechanisms is presented. First, a general approach for error modeling of lower-mobility parallel mechanism is proposed based on screw theory, and then the geometric errors affecting the compensatable and uncompensatable accuracy of the end-effector are separated using the properties of dual vector space. The pose error aroused by compensatable geometric errors can be compensated via kinematic calibration, while the uncompensatable geometric errors should be minimized during the manufacturing and assembly processes. Based on that, the tolerance allocation method is presented, giving each uncompensatable geometric error a proper tolerance by the use of reliability theory. Compared with the traditional tolerance allocation method, the advantages of the proposed method are as follows: the number of geometric errors to be allocated is greatly reduced; the results of serialized tolerance allocation can be obtained according to different reliability indices of pose accuracy of end-effector for designers to choose; on the premise of guaranteeing the same pose accuracy of end-effector, the allocated tolerances are loose and easy to realize. Finally, the proposed methods are successfully applied to an R(2-RPS&RP)&UPS lower-mobility parallel robot, and the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method are verified.

Human-like motion of robots can improve human–robot interaction and increase the efficiency. In this paper, a novel human-like motion planning strategy is proposed to help anthropomorphic arms generate human-like movements accurately. The strategy consists of three parts: movement primitives, Bayesian network (BN), and a novel coupling neural network (CPNN). The movement primitives are used to decouple the human arm movements. The classification of arm movements improves the accuracy of human-like movements. The motion-decision algorithm based on BN is able to predict occurrence probabilities of the motions and choose appropriate mode of motion. Then, a novel CPNN is proposed to solve the inverse kinematics problems of anthropomorphic arms. The CPNN integrates different models into a single network and reflects the features of these models by changing the network structure. Through the strategy, the anthropomorphic arms can generate various human-like movements with satisfactory accuracy. Finally, the availability of the proposed strategy is verified by simulations for the general motion of humanoid NAO.

Agile bionic leg mechanism (ABLM) has attracted more and more attention in the development of jumping robots and high-speed running robots. However, theoretical study of the global structure for motility characteristics and its evolution is few. By using the modern mathematical tools such as singular theory, geometric topology, and group theory, a global scale analysis method for kinematic performance of mechanisms is proposed. Taking 6-bar with two rings mechanism as an example, a detailed analysis process is studied. The 6-bar ABLM designed by this theory is verified by virtual prototype simulation experiment. The global scale analysis of 4-bar linkage is also carried out by using this method, and the result is compared with the “Grashof criterion” to verify the correctness of this method. It provides a general theory and method for innovative design and global scale analysis of ABLM.

We propose the N-learning practical approach for teaching and learning behaviors in a multirobot system, which is performed through mandatory behavior acquisition based on interactions between the robots at execution time. The proposed methodology can be used to self-program the robots of a team by programming only a single robot with a set of codes that contain behaviors to be transferred and used by other robots as necessary. These codes are implemented in a modular fashion. An advantage of our approach is that when a team of robots is required to perform a specific mission, the set of behaviors required to accomplish that mission can be implemented only once in a single robot or in a distributed fashion. Then, these distributed behaviors are transferred to each of the other robots in the team according to their demand, without the need to reprogram them by hand since the robots in the team can share them autonomously. As an application example, a human critic can teach (or program) only one or a few robots, and these robots are thus able to exchange knowledge with the other team members since they have been preinstalled to run the N-learning system basics. Simulated and real robot experiments are performed to demonstrate the feasibility and validation of our approach.