Planning algorithms are impacting technical disciplines and industries around the world, including robotics, computer-aided design, manufacturing, computer graphics, aerospace applications, drug design, and protein folding. This coherent and comprehensive book unifies material from several sources, including robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, and algorithms. The treatment is centered on robot motion planning but integrates material on planning in discrete spaces. A major part of the book is devoted to planning under uncertainty, including decision theory, Markov decision processes, and information spaces, which are the “configuration spaces” of all sensor-based planning problems. The last part of the book delves into planning under differential constraints that arise when automating the motions of virtually any mechanical system. Developed from courses taught by the author, the book is intended for students, engineers, and researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control theory as well as computer graphics, algorithms, and computational biology.

Planning Algorithms: Introductory Material

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Rigid Motions and Homogeneous Transformations. 3. Forward and Inverse Kinematics. 4. Velocity Kinematics-The Jacobian. 5. Path and Trajectory Planning. 6. Independent Joint Control. 7. Dynamics. 8. Multivariable Control. 9. Force Control. 10. Geometric Nonlinear Control. 11. Computer Vision. 12. Vision-Based Control. Appendix A: Trigonometry. Appendix B: Linear Algebra. Appendix C: Dynamical Systems. Appendix D: Lyapunov Stability. Index.

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Robot Modeling and Control

Paper: The internal model principle of control theory

Human skin is a remarkable organ. It consists of an integrated, stretchable network of sensors that relay information about tactile and thermal stimuli to the brain, allowing us to maneuver within our environment safely and effectively. Interest in large-area networks of electronic devices inspired by human skin is motivated by the promise of creating autonomous intelligent robots and biomimetic prosthetics, among other applications. The development of electronic networks comprised of flexible, stretchable, and robust devices that are compatible with large-area implementation and integrated with multiple functionalities is a testament to the progress in developing an electronic skin (e-skin) akin to human skin. E-skins are already capable of providing augmented performance over their organic counterpart, both in superior spatial resolution and thermal sensitivity. They could be further improved through the incorporation of additional functionalities (e.g., chemical and biological sensing) and desired properties (e.g., biodegradability and self-powering). Continued rapid progress in this area is promising for the development of a fully integrated e-skin in the near future.

25th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Electronic Skin (E-Skin): A Brief History, Design Considerations, and Recent Progress

This book, written by two major figures in adaptive control, provides a wealth of material for researchers, practitioners, and students. While some researchers in adaptive control may note the absence of a particular topic, the book‘s scope represents a high-gain instrument. It can be used by designers of control systems to enhance their work through the information on many new theoretical developments, and can be used by mathematical control theory specialists to adapt their research to practical needs. The book is strongly recommended to anyone interested in adaptive control.

Adaptive Control

Task space trajectory control of flexible micro-macro robot in the presence of parametric uncertainty

In most applications of manipulating systems, the manipulator has to make contact with rigid fixtures in its environment. In practice, it has been noticed that the performance of the contact force controllers is affected when the manipulator is in contact with a rigid environment or in the presence of uncertainties. A model of the manipulator in contact with a rigid environment is presented, and a robust control architecture based on a general theory of a servomechanism for controlling the contact force is proposed. The results of this work are demonstrated experimentally using a two-degree-of-freedom direct drive robot. >

A robust force controller: theory and experiments

The design of a robust nonlinear feedback controller is addressed for an N-degree-of-freedom robot with bounded uncertainty in the dynamic model's parameters. It is demonstrated that the proposed controller makes the robot system practically stable when both unknown payload variation and joint frictional force are taken into consideration. It is also shown that this controller can guarantee the practical stability of the robot system when a collision between the robot and its environmental occurs. Sufficient conditions for global practical stability are derived using Lyapunov's second method. A numerical simulation of a two-link robot manipulator with bounded parameter to illustrate the proposed control system. >

Robust control of unconstrained maneuver and collision for a robot manipulator with bounded parameter uncertainty

In this paper the design of a novel modular hydraulic/pneumatic actuated tele-robotic system and a new infrastructure for MRI-guided intervention for closed-bore MRI- guided neurosurgery are presented. Candidate neurosurgical procedures enabled by this system would include thermal ablation, radiofrequency ablation, deep brain stimulators, and targeted drug delivery. The major focus is the application of the designed MR-compatible robotic system to MRI-guided brain biopsy. Navigation and operating modules were designed to undertake the alignment and advancement of the surgical needle respectively. The mechanical design and control paradigm are reported.

A New Hydraulically/Pneumatically Actuated MR-Compatible Robot for MRI-Guided Neurosurgery

The paper describes a novel approach to accurate positioning control of mechanical devices with nonlinear (stick-slip) friction. The controller applies narrow torque pulses to achieve the desired displacement of the mechanism. The pulse shapes are computed through fuzzy logic approximation of the dependence between the desired displacement and the pulse shape. The stability conditions of the proposed controller are derived taking into account an influence of random variation of the friction properties. A detailed experimental study of the system response to the torque pulses of different shapes and a detailed controller design are presented for a direct-drive manipulator setup. It is experimentally demonstrated that the developed controller achieves positioning precision up to the limits of the position encoder resolution.

Andrew A. Goldenberg

Papers

Task space trajectory control of flexible micro-macro robot in the presence of parametric uncertainty

A robust force controller: theory and experiments

Robust control of unconstrained maneuver and collision for a robot manipulator with bounded parameter uncertainty

A New Hydraulically/Pneumatically Actuated MR-Compatible Robot for MRI-Guided Neurosurgery

Fuzzy logic controller for accurate positioning of direct-drive mechanism using force pulses