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

In this paper, fundamental principles of design of position/force controller for robot manipulators executing constrained task are enunciated. The principles are based on stability considerations, and are addressing the dynamic interaction between position and force subcontrollers. The principles could serve as design guidelines that would guarantee overall stability and reduction of the interactions between the subcontrollers. The concept of consistency introduced in this paper forms the cornerstone of proper implementation of position/force (P/F) controllers, in terms of reduction of the interaction between the two subcontrollers. The principle of consistency indicates that the direct interaction is canceled via the design of a stable P/F controller, however the indirect interaction can only be removed if a Jacobian condition is satisfied, independent of the subcontrollers design.

Fundamental principles of design of position and force controller for robot manipulators

This paper presents the experimental aspects of a robotic system used for detection, sorting and grading of paper objects from visual features. The experimental system is used as an automated paper recycling system. The system uses simplified stereo vision to compute position estimate of unknown objects. A vector of geometrical and textural features is used for sorting the paper, according to its grade. The grading process uses additional contact sensors for refining grading from visual features. Supervised learning is used for training the decision system to separate paper from other objects. The experimental aspects of the training process are presented in detail. A special vacuum gripper was designed for gripping paper objects detected by the vision system. The experimental results prove the efficiency of the proposed techniques.

An Experimental System for Automated Paper Recycling

This paper proposes a new adaptive method for two-channel bilateral teleoperation systems control; the control method consists of adaptive force feedback and motion command scaling factors that ensure stable teleoperation with maximum achievable transparency at every moment of operation. The method is based on the integration of the real time estimation of the robot's environment impedance with the adaptive force and motion scaling factors generator. This paper formulates the adaptive scaling factors for stable teleoperation based on the impedance models of master, slave and estimated impedance of the environment. Feasibility and accuracy of an online environment impedance estimation method are analyzed through simulations and experiments. Then the proposed adaptive bilateral control method is verified through simulation studies. Results show stable interactions with maximum transparency for the simulated teleoperation system.

An adaptive force reflective teleoperation control method using online environment impedance estimation

An Application of Robust Servomechanisms to Control of Flexible Structures. Part I: Modelling and Synthesis

This paper describes the development of AUTOPASS, an efficient automated parking support system for passenger cars. The parking motion controller involves Artificial Neural Network technology and a combination of linear feedback and feedforward control. The paper presents the results of the controller design and analysis, including parking problem analysis, feedback controller stability analysis formulation and optimal solution of the parking trajectory planning problem, and design of a novel parking motion planning architecture based on a Radial Basis Function network. Three general cases of backward parking considered in this work are emulated using the proposed controller. The emulation results reveal high efficiency of the presented approach and demonstrate that the proposed system can be implemented on a typical passenger car.

Andrew A. Goldenberg

Papers

Fundamental principles of design of position and force controller for robot manipulators

An Experimental System for Automated Paper Recycling

An adaptive force reflective teleoperation control method using online environment impedance estimation

An Application of Robust Servomechanisms to Control of Flexible Structures. Part I: Modelling and Synthesis

Autopass, automated parking support system