Formation and control of optimal trajectory in human multijoint arm movement : minimum torque-change model

Robotic applications are expanding into dynamic, unstructured, and populated environments. Mechanisms specifically designed to address the challenges arising in these environments, such as humanoid robots, exhibit high kinematic complexity. This creates the need for new algorithmic approaches to motion generation, capable of performing task execution and real-time obstacle avoidance in high-dimensional configuration spaces. The elastic strip framework presented in this paper enables the execution of a previously planned motion in a dynamic environment for robots with many degrees of freedom. To modify a motion in reaction to changes in the environment, real-time obstacle avoidance is combined with desired posture behavior. The modification of a motion can be performed in a task-consistent manner, leaving task execution unaffected by obstacle avoidance and posture behavior. The elastic strip framework also encompasses methods to suspend task behavior when its execution becomes inconsistent with other const...

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Elastic Strips: A Framework for Motion Generation in Human Environments

This note presents a modification of the integrated friction model structure proposed by Swevers et al. (2000), called the Leuven model. The Leuven model structure allows accurate modeling both in the presliding and the sliding regimes without the use of a switching function. The model incorporates a hysteresis function with nonlocal memory and arbitrary transition curves. This note presents two modifications of the Leuven model. A first modification overcomes a recently detected shortcoming of the original Leuven model: a discontinuity in the friction force which occurs during certain transitions in presliding. A second modification, using the general Maxwell slip model to implement the hysteresis force, eliminates the problem of stack overflow, which can occur with the implementation of the hysteresis force.

Technical Note: modification of the Leuven integrated friction model structure

We advocate a simple geometric model for elasticity: distance between the differential of a deformation and the rotation group. It comes with rigorous differential geometric underpinnings, both smooth and discrete, and is computationally almost as simple and efficient as linear elasticity. Owing to its geometric non-linearity, though, it does not suffer from the usual linearization artifacts. A material model with standard elastic moduli (Lame parameters) falls out naturally, and a minimizer for static problems is easily augmented to construct a fully variational 2nd order time integrator. It has excellent conservation properties even for very coarse simulations, making it very robust.Our analysis was motivated by a number of heuristic, physics-like algorithms from geometry processing (editing, morphing, parameterization, and simulation). Starting with a continuous energy formulation and taking the underlying geometry into account, we simplify and accelerate these algorithms while avoiding common pitfalls. Through the connection with the Biot strain of mechanics, the intuition of previous work that these ideas are "like" elasticity is shown to be spot on.

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A simple geometric model for elastic deformations

A quadrotor with a cable-suspended load with eight degrees of freedom and four degrees underactuation is considered and a coordinate-free dynamic model, defined on the configuration space SE(3)×S2, is obtained by taking variations on manifolds. The quadrotor-load system is established to be a differentially-flat hybrid system with the load position and the quadrotor yaw serving as the flat outputs. A nonlinear geometric control design is developed, that enables tracking of outputs defined by (a) quadrotor attitude, (b) load attitude, and (c) position of the load. In each case, the closed-loop system exhibits almost-global properties. Stability proofs for the controller design, as well as simulations of the proposed controller are presented.

Geometric control and differential flatness of a quadrotor UAV with a cable-suspended load

High-gain proportional-integral-derivative (PID) position control involves some risk of unsafe behaviors in cases of abnormal events, such as unexpected environment contacts and temporary power failures. This paper proposes a new position-control method that is as accurate as conventional PID control during normal operation, but is capable of slow, overdamped resuming motion without overshoots from large positional errors that result in actuator-force saturation. The proposed method, which we call proxy-based sliding mode control (PSMC), is an alternative approximation of a simplest type of sliding mode control (SMC), and also is an extension of the PID control. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated through stability analysis and experimental results.

Proxy-Based Sliding Mode Control: A Safer Extension of PID Position Control

This paper discusses parallel wire mechanisms where an end-effector of the mechanism is suspended by multiple wires. The mechanisms enable not only three-dimensional (3-D) positioning but also 3-D orienting of the end-effector, unlike typical wire suspension-type mechanisms such as overhead crane. To discuss the parallel-wire-suspended mechanisms generally, two forms of basic dynamic equations are presented. Then the parallel wire mechanisms are classified into two types based on the basic equations. Dynamical properties of the two types of wire-suspended positioning mechanism are discussed. In this paper, one of the wire-suspended mechanism, incompletely restrained-type parallel wire mechanism, is mainly discussed on its inverse dynamics problem and its trajectory control problem. The inverse dynamics problem for the incompletely restrained-type mechanism plays an important role on its control problem, because the mechanism has low stiffness based on incomplete constraints on the suspended object which is governed by its dynamics. The paper proposes an antisway control method for the suspended object. In the method, the inverse dynamics calculation is used for nonlinear dynamics compensation to control the suspended object of the incompletely restrained parallel wire mechanism.

Trajectory control of incompletely restrained parallel-wire-suspended mechanism based on inverse dynamics

This paper presents a new soft wearable robotic suit for energy-efficient walking in daily activities for elderly persons. The presented robotic suit provides a small yet effective assistive force for hip flexion through winding belts that include elastic elements. In addition, it does not restrict the range of movement in the lower limbs. Moreover, its structure is simple and lightweight, and thus wearers can easily take the device on and off by themselves. Experimental results on nine elderly subjects (age = 74.2±3.7 years) show that the robotic suit worn and powered on (PON) significantly reduced energy expenditure by an average of 5.9% compared with the condition of worn but powered off (POFF). Furthermore, compared with the POFF condition, there was a significant improvement in gait characteristics in the PON condition for all subjects.

Experimental Evaluation of Energy Efficiency for a Soft Wearable Robotic Suit

This article describes a computationally efficient formulation and an algorithm for tetrahedral finite-element simulation of elastic objects subject to Saint Venant-Kirchhoff (StVK) material law. The number of floating point operations required by the algorithm is in the range of 15p to 27p for computing the vertex forces from a given set of vertex positions, and 27p to 38p for the tangent stiffness matrix, in comparison to a well-optimized algorithm directly derived from the conventional Total Lagrangian formulation. In the new algorithm, the data is associated with edges and tetrahedron-sharing edge-pairs (TSEPs), as opposed to tetrahedra, to avoid redundant computation. Another characteristic of the presented formulation is that it reduces to that of a spring-network model by simply ignoring all the TSEPs. The technique is demonstrated through an interactive application involving haptic interaction, being combined with a linearized implicit integration technique employing a preconditioned conjugate gradient method.

An edge-based computationally efficient formulation of Saint Venant-Kirchhoff tetrahedral finite elements

This paper presents methods of trajectory planning for a mobile manipulator with stability considerations. The proposed trajectory planning method is to generate a trajectory for the mobile manipulator from a given path of the end-effector considering stability. Then, we derive a dynamics model of the mobile manipulator considering it as the combined system of the manipulator and the mobile platform. ZMP criterion is used as an index for the system stability. The trajectory planning problem is formulated as an optimal control problem with some constraints. To solve the problem, we use a hierarchical gradient method which synthesizes the gradient function in a hierarchical manner based on the order of priority. The simulation results of the 2-link planar nonholonomic mobile manipulator are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Motoji Yamamoto

Papers

Proxy-Based Sliding Mode Control: A Safer Extension of PID Position Control

Trajectory control of incompletely restrained parallel-wire-suspended mechanism based on inverse dynamics

Experimental Evaluation of Energy Efficiency for a Soft Wearable Robotic Suit

An edge-based computationally efficient formulation of Saint Venant-Kirchhoff tetrahedral finite elements

Trajectory planning of mobile manipulator with stability considerations