A prototype of a catheter which can move like a snake, incorporating distributed shape memory alloy actuators, is described. Since this active catheter has an instrumental navigation ability, minimally invasive diagnosis and interventional therapy will be possible. The outer diameter of the active catheter is 2.8 mm and it has many links fabricated by 3-dimensional silicon micromachining. The silicon batch process was used for the fabrication of the link to minimize assembly work. A new heating method (indirect heating) is suggested which is necessary when the JC chip is mounted on the link.

A new type of microrobot is described. Its simple and compact design is believed to be of promise in the microrobotics field. Stepping motion allows speeds up to 4mm/s. Resolution smaller than 10 nm is achievable. Experiments in an open-loop motion demonstrated a repeatability better than 50µm on a 10 mm displacement at an average speed of 0.25 mm/s. A position feedback based on a microvision system will be developed in order to achieve a submicron absolute position accuracy.

Structural and control flexibilities affect the absolute precision of serial manipulators. A semi-flexible kinematic model is developed, to improve the absolute static precision. It expands the solid body model by incorporating a spring effect for each joint and a beam effect for each link. The identifiability of the added parameters and the effect of measurement noise are explored on a R4 robot. It requires efforts and pose errors to be known in the tool frame only. Simulation results show that identification of some of the parameters is sensitive to measurement noise on forces and pose. In fact, joint flexibility displacement and beam flexion that occur in the same plane are difficult to dissociate in noisy condition. However, a subset of the original parameters can be defined leading to a model that can be more accurately identified when measurement noise is present. In simulation, precompensation is used in an inverse semi-flexible model that results in a 98% decrease of pose error compared to the rigid body inverse geometric model.

We present a method for kinematic calibration of open chain mechanisms based on the product of exponentials (POE) formula. The POE formula represents the forward kinematics of an open chain as a product of matrix exponentials, and is based on a modern geometric interpretation of classical screw theory. Unlike the kinematic representations based on the Denavit- Hartenberg (D-H) parameters, the kinematic parameters in the POE formula vary smoothly with changes in the joint axes, ad hoc methods designed to address the inherent singularities in the D-H parameters are therefore unnecessary. Another important advantage is that simple closed-form expressions can be obtained for the derivatives of the forward kinematic equations with respect to the kinematic parameters. After introducing the POE formula, we derive a least-squares kinematic calibration algorithm for general open chain mechanisms. Simulation results with a 6-axis open chain are presented.

In this paper a new method is presented for solving the inverse kinematics of free-floating space manipulators. The idea behind the method is to move the space manipulator along a path with minimum dynamic disturbance. The method is proposed to use the manipulator Jacobian instead of the generalized Jacobian of the spacecraft-manipulator system. This is based on the simple fact that, if the space manipulator moves along the so-called Zero Disturbance Path (ZDP), the spacecraft is immovable. As a result, the space manipulator can in this case be treated as a terrestrial fixed-based manipulator. Hence, the motion mapping between the joints and the end-effector can be described directly by the manipulator Jacobian. In the case that the ZDP does not exist, it can be shown that the solutions obtained by the proposed method provide a path with minimum dynamic disturbance.

Many motion planning methods use Configuration Space to represent a robot manipulator's range of motion and the obstacles which exist in its environment. The Cartesian to Configuration Space mapping is computationally intensive and this paper describes how the execution time can be decreased by using parallel processing. The natural tree structure of the algorithm is exploited to partition the computation into parallel tasks. An implementation programmed in the occam2 parallel computer language running on a network of INMOS transputers is described. The benefits of dynamically scheduling the tasks onto the processors are explained and verified by means of measured execution times on various processor network topologies. It is concluded that excellent speed-up and efficiency can be achieved provided that proper account is taken of the variable task lengths in the computation.

This paper addresses the kinematic workspaces of a walking machine and their graphical representation. The workspaces for walking machines are denned and the methods for investigating various workspaces are presented; the kinematic workspace constraints are established; the displacement is analysed; an algorithm for investigation of kinematic workspaces is presented; and the position and orientation kinematic workspaces are analysed and graphically represented for an example walking machine design.

A potential panel method is proposed to solve simultaneously the path planning and collision avoidance problem for a mobile robot operating in an uncertain obstacle filled environment. The problem is solved in three steps: (1) transform the arbitrary shaped obstacles in the 2-D workspace into simple convex polygons; (2) generate a local minima-free potential field on the workspace; (3) generate a streamline from the starting position towards the goal position in the artificial potential field. The computational complexity of the pertinent algorithms justify the applicability of the approach in real-time. Simulation results are included.

This paper presents a mathematical model of a robot with one degree of freedom and numerical investigation of its dynamics in a particular parameter scan which is close to the upper boundary of the estimates for the parameters of rigidity and friction, while the length parameter L is treated as a free control parameter. In this L-scan the quasiperiodic and frequency locked solutions, their pattern and order of appearance are studied in the interval from the parameter range of immediate engineering significance to the point of appearance of transient chaos. In particular, a fractaltype multiple splitting of Arnold tongues is found in the parameter region bordering the range of engineering significance.

This paper presents a study of the dynamics of undersea robot manipulators in an unstructured sea water environment and a control scheme appropriate for manipulating them. Under the sea, the buoyancy and the added mass should be considered in modeling the dynamics of the robot manipulators. However, due to the complexity of the modeling of the added mass, the dynamics of the robot manipulators are treated as an unmodeled dynamics in this paper. In addition to the buoyancy and added mass/moment of inertia, disturbing forces due to drag, and current affecting the dynamics of the robot manipulators should be considered. In this paper, the forces due to the drag are defined as disturbance forces in addition to the frictional force of manipulator joints. In order to control the manipulator, a robust control scheme is devised to achieve trajectory tracking while regulating disturbance forces. A numerical example is shown.

A haptic interface is a computer-controlled mechanism designed to detect motion of a human operator without impeding that motion, and to feed back forces from a teleoperated robot or virtual environment. Design of such a device is not trivial, because of the many conflicting constraints the designer must face.

As part of our research into haptics, we have developed a prototype planar mechanism. It has low apparent mass and damping, high structural stiffness, high force bandwidth, high force dynamic range, and an absence of mechanical singularities within its workspace. We present an analysis of the human-operator and mechanical constraints that apply to any such device, and propose methods for the evaluation of haptic interfaces. Our evaluation criteria are derived from the original task analysis, and are a first step towards a replicable methodology for comparing the performance of different devices.

To perform dextrous manipulation efficiently, it is necessary to coordinate the interactions of many component processes. This paper investigates one approach to coordination: discrete-event systems. The applicability of discrete-event systems to the modeling of dextrous manipulation tasks is studied. Discrete-event control theory offers formal methods for determining whether a coordinator of the components can be generated. A representative dextrous manipulation task, the planar Grasp-Lift-Replace task of Howe and Cutkosky, is presented as a discrete-event process. The task is extended to include two-fingered exploratory procedures. The effectiveness of the discrete-event system approach is illustrated through simulations of several test cases.

Position localization is a necessary and important task for an intelligent robot, which moves and works in place of human workers. Various methods for position localization tasks have been proposed and developed by many researchers; for example, can active method using ultrasonic waves or laser and a passive method using images of bar codes or marks in the workspace of the robot. The passive method, using images of the object in the workspace of the robot, is particularly desirable, as this method does not influence the workspace. Thus, an arrangement of the workspace is not necessary and many robots can work simultaneously.

Automation of heavy construction machinery needs sensors that can detect each position under severe construction fields. Motivated by this need a hydraulic cylinder equipped with Hall sensors of Ga-As type has been developed. However, this sensor device has some problems associated with incorrect detection of positions owing to the existence of some magnetic slope and electric noises. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a digital stroke sensing cylinder enhanced by digital signal processing. An apparatus of two hydraulic systems coupled with each other is installed in an experimental setup to evaluate the performance of the developed digital stroke sensing cylinder. In order to control the position of a cylinder rod, a PWM method is used. Evaluation of the performance is carried out under artificial disturbances such as an impulse, addition of some magnetic slope, and additional noises.

Multilink robot arms are geometrically similar to chain molecules. We investigate the performance of molecular simulation methods, combined with stochastic methods for optimization, when applied to problems of robotics. An efficient and flexible algorithm for solving the inverse kinematic problem for redundant robots in the presence of obstacle's (and other constraints) is suggested. This “Constrained Kinematics/Stochastic Optimization” (CKSO) method is tested on various standard problems.

Part I of this paper was concerned with kinematic workspaces of walking machines, while this paper addresses the static workspaces of a walking machine and their graphical representation. The results of static analysis are presented; the static workspace constraints are established; an algorithm for investigation of static workspaces is presented; and the position static workspaces are analysed and graphically represented for an example walking machine design.

Motor torque constant is an important parameter in modeling and controlling a robot axis. In practice this parameter can vary considerably from the manufacturer's specification, if available, and this makes it desirable to characterise individual motors. Traditional techniques require that the motor can be removed from the robot for testing, or that an elaborate technique involving weights and pulleys be employed. This paper describes a novel method for measuring the torque constant of robot servo motors in situ and is based on the equivalence of motor torque and back EMF constants. It requires a very simple experimental procedure, utilizes existing axis position sensors, and eliminates effects due to static friction and joint cross coupling. A straightforward extension to this approach can provide a measurement of motor armature impedance. Experimental results obtained for a Puma 560 are discussed and compared with other published results.

This paper presents theoretical and experimental investigations into modelling a single-link flexible manipulator system. An analytical model of the manipulator, characterised by an infinite number of modes, is developed using the Lagrange's equation and modal expansion method. This is used to develop equivalent time-domain and frequency-domain working models of the system in state-space and transfer function forms respectively. The model parameters are then estimated experimentally using system's measured input/output data. The model thus obtained is validated through experimentation and results including the effect of payload on system characteristics presented and discussed.

A new model for the construction of a sonar map in a specular environment has been developed and implemented. In a real world, where most of the object surfaces are specular ones, a sonar sensor surfers from a multipath effect which results in a wrong interpretation of an object's location. To reduce this effect and hence to construct a reliable map of a robot's surroundings, a probabilistic approach based on Bayesian reasoning is adopted to both evaluation of object orientations and estimation of an occupancy probability of a cell by an object. The usefulness of this approach is illustrated with the results produced by our mobile robot equipped with ultrasonic sensors.