Coordinated Visual and Kinematic Servoing for Positioning Manipulating UAV End-Effectors

Author(s):  
Todd W. Danko ◽  
Paul Y. Oh

Manipulating objects using arms mounted to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is attractive because UAVs may access many locations that are otherwise inaccessible to traditional mobile manipulation platforms such as ground vehicles. However, the constantly moving UAV platform and compliance of manipulator arms make it difficult to position the UAV and end-effector relative to an object of interest precisely enough for reliable manipulation. Solving this challenge will bring UAVs one step closer to being able to perform meaningful tasks such as infrastructure repair, disaster response, law enforcement, and personal assistance. Toward a solution to this challenge, this paper describes an approach to coordinate the redundant degrees of freedom of a six degree of freedom gantry with those of a six degree of freedom manipulator arm. The manipulator’s degrees of freedom are visually servoed to a specified pose relative to a target while treating motions of the host platform as perturbations. Simultaneously, the host platform’s degrees of freedom are servoed using kinematic information from the manipulator. This drives the base of the manipulator to a position that allows it to assume a joint-space configuration that maximizes reachability while minimizing static torque transmitted from the arm to the host.

1989 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. J. Waldron ◽  
M. Raghavan ◽  
B. Roth

In this paper we first derive the coordinate transformations associated with a three-degree-of-freedom in-parallel-actuated micro-manipulator. Then we combine these results with the transformations associated with an in-series three-axis wrist on which the in-parallel micro-manipulator is mounted. The results are the basic transformation equations between joint-space position variables and end-effector (or task space) position variables for a hybrid series/parallel six-degree-of-freedom manipulator system. This structural combination results in a manipulator which exhibits desirable fine and gross motion characteristics as both a stand-alone device or as a sub-system of a more complex system with redundant degrees of freedom. The forward and inverse position kinematics and rate and force decomposition for this hybrid six-degree-of-freedom linkage are presented.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3740
Author(s):  
Olafur Oddbjornsson ◽  
Panos Kloukinas ◽  
Tansu Gokce ◽  
Kate Bourne ◽  
Tony Horseman ◽  
...  

This paper presents the design, development and evaluation of a unique non-contact instrumentation system that can accurately measure the interface displacement between two rigid components in six degrees of freedom. The system was developed to allow measurement of the relative displacements between interfaces within a stacked column of brick-like components, with an accuracy of 0.05 mm and 0.1 degrees. The columns comprised up to 14 components, with each component being a scale model of a graphite brick within an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor core. A set of 585 of these columns makes up the Multi Layer Array, which was designed to investigate the response of the reactor core to seismic inputs, with excitation levels up to 1 g from 0 to 100 Hz. The nature of the application required a compact and robust design capable of accurately recording fully coupled motion in all six degrees of freedom during dynamic testing. The novel design implemented 12 Hall effect sensors with a calibration procedure based on system identification techniques. The measurement uncertainty was ±0.050 mm for displacement and ±0.052 degrees for rotation, and the system can tolerate loss of data from two sensors with the uncertainly increasing to only 0.061 mm in translation and 0.088 degrees in rotation. The system has been deployed in a research programme that has enabled EDF to present seismic safety cases to the Office for Nuclear Regulation, resulting in life extension approvals for several reactors. The measurement system developed could be readily applied to other situations where the imposed level of stress at the interface causes negligible material strain, and accurate non-contact six-degree-of-freedom interface measurement is required.


Author(s):  
Akira Okamoto ◽  
Dean B. Edwards

Various control algorithms have been developed for fleets of autonomous vehicles. Many of the successful control algorithms in practice are behavior-based control or nonlinear control algorithms, which makes analyzing their stability difficult. At the same time, many system theoretic approaches for controlling a fleet of vehicles have also been developed. These approaches usually use very simple vehicle models such as particles or point-mass systems and have only one coordinate system which allows stability to be proven. Since most of the practical vehicle models are six-degree-of-freedom systems defined relative to a body-fixed coordinate system, it is difficult to apply these algorithms in practice. In this paper, we consider a formation regulation problem as opposed to a formation control problem. In a formation control problem, convergence of a formation from random positions and orientations is considered, and it may need a scheme to integrate multiple moving coordinates. On the contrary, in a formation regulation problem, it is not necessary since small perturbations from the nominal condition, in which the vehicles are in formation, are considered. A common origin is also not necessary if the relative distance to neighbors or a leader is used for regulation. Under these circumstances, the system theoretic control algorithms are applicable to a formation regulation problem where the vehicle models have six degrees of freedom. We will use a realistic six-degree-of-freedom model and investigate stability of a fleet using results from decentralized control theory. We will show that the leader-follower control algorithm does not have any unstable fixed modes if the followers are able to measure distance to the leader. We also show that the leader-follower control algorithm has fixed modes at the origin, indicating that the formation is marginally stable, when the relative distance measurements are not available. Multi-vehicle simulations are performed using a hybrid leader-follower control algorithm where each vehicle is given a desired trajectory to follow and adjusts its velocity to maintain a prescribed distance to the leader. Each vehicle is modeled as a three-degree-of-freedom system to investigate the vehicle’s motion in a horizontal plane. The examples show efficacy of the analysis.


Author(s):  
Kathryn J. De Laurentis ◽  
Sam L. Phillips

This is the presentation of a prototype wrist, which has powered rotation and flexion. Powered flexion is an important addition to an externally powered prosthesis. Flexion and extension, along with rotation give the prosthesis two additional degrees of freedom, which when added to degrees of freedom for the shoulder and elbow yield a six-degree of freedom system. Six-degrees of freedom are important because they allow placement of the hand throughout the entire workspace. Without flexion, amputees cannot reach some positions, and must use compensatory motions for many other movements.


Author(s):  
Michael Rouleau ◽  
Dennis Hong

End-effectors require careful design considerations to be able to successfully hold and use power tools while maintaining the ability to also grasp a wide range of other objects. This paper describes the design of an end effector for a humanoid robot built for disaster response scenarios. The end effector is comprised of two independently actuated fingers with two opposing stationary rigid hollow pylons built to allow the pinching of objects and to provide protection for the opposing fingers when retracted and not in use. Each finger has two degrees of freedom (DOF) and is actuated with one servo motor through the use of an underactuated four bar linkage. Using only two fingers and two actuators the end-effector has the ability to hold a power tool while also being able to simultaneously actuate the trigger of the tool independently. The combination of compliant fingers and rigid pylons along with the careful design of the palm structure creates a strong robust dexterous end-effort that is simple to control.


1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 430-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiromu Onda ◽  
◽  
Tsutomu Hasegawa ◽  
Toshihiro Matsui ◽  

This paper describes a new method for finding collisionfree paths for a multiple-degree of freedom (DOF) manipulator with rotational joints and a grasped object. The method first analyzes the structure of empty space in the 3-D workspace. Based on this space analysis, the path search is divided and direction which appears to be most promising is determined in the 3-D workspace. Finally, the path search is systematically executed in the joint space in the direction equivalent to the promising direction. This method is applicable to various problems regardless of the number of degrees of freedom of the manipulator, its structure, and the presence of a grasped object.


Author(s):  
Lynnane E. George ◽  
Wayne J. Book

A rigid (micro) robot mounted serially to the tip of a long, flexible (macro) manipulator is often used to increase reach capability, but flexibility in the macromanipulator can interfere with positioning accuracy. A rigid manipulator attached to a flexible but unactuated base was used to study a scheme to achieve positioning of the micromanipulator combined with enhanced vibration damping of the base. Inertial interaction forces and torques acting between the robot and its base were modeled and studied to determine how to use them to damp the vibration. One issue is that there are locations in the workspace where the rigid robot loses its ability to create interactions in one or more degrees of freedom. These “inertial singularities” are functions of the rigid robot’s joint variables. A performance index was developed to predict the ability of the rigid robot to damp vibration and will help ensure the robot is operating in joint space configurations favorable for inertial damping. When the performance index is used along with the appropriate choice of feedback gains, the inertia effects, or those directly due to accelerating the robot’s links, have the greatest influence on the interactions. By commanding the robot link’s accelerations out of phase with the base velocity, vibration energy will be removed from the system. This signal is then added to the rigid robot’s position control signal. Simulations of a rigid three degree of freedom anthropomorphic robot mounted on a flexible base were developed and show the effectiveness of the control scheme. In addition, experimental results demonstrating two degree of freedom vibration damping are included.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbe Cohen ◽  
Elaine Chen

Abstract This paper describes a new six degree of freedom haptic interface with a large translational and rotational range of motion. The 6DOF haptic interface is demonstrated with an example industrial-scale virtual prototyping simulation which shows a moderately complex object Interacting with an arbitrarily complex virtual environment, using a full-service collision detection and response package to calculate the force and torque response in all six degrees of freedom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (7) ◽  
pp. 779-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troy McMahon ◽  
Shawna Thomas ◽  
Nancy M Amato

Motion planning for constrained systems is a version of the motion planning problem in which the motion of a robot is limited by constraints. For example, one can require that a humanoid robot such as a PR2 remain upright by constraining its torso to be above its base or require that an object such as a bucket of water remain upright by constraining the vertices of the object to be parallel to the robot’s base. Grasping can be modeled by requiring that the end effectors of the robot be located at specified handle positions. Constraints might require that the robot remain in contact with a surface, or that certain joints of the robot remain in contact with each other (e.g., closed chains). Such problems are particularly difficult because the constraints form a manifold in C-space, and planning must be restricted to this manifold. High-degree-of-freedom motion planning and motion planning for constrained systems has applications in parallel robotics, grasping and manipulation, computational biology and molecular simulations, and animation. We introduce a new concept, reachable volumes, that are a geometric representation of the regions the joints and end effectors of a robot can reach, and use it to define a new planning space called RV-space where all points automatically satisfy a problem’s constraints. Visualizations of reachable volumes can enable operators to see the regions of workspace that different parts of the robot can reach. Samples and paths generated in RV-space naturally conform to constraints, making planning for constrained systems no more difficult than planning for unconstrained systems. Consequently, constrained motion planning problems that were previously difficult or unsolvable become manageable and in many cases trivial. We introduce tools and techniques to extend the state-of-the-art sampling-based motion planning algorithms to RV-space. We define a reachable volumes sampler, a reachable volumes local planner, and a reachable volumes distance metric. We showcase the effectiveness of RV-space by applying these tools to motion planning problems for robots with constraints on the end effectors and/or internal joints of the robot. We show that RV-based planners are more efficient than existing methods, particularly for higher-dimensional problems, solving problems with 1000 or more degrees of freedom for multi-loop and tree-like linkages.


Author(s):  
Damien Chablat ◽  
Philippe Wenger

This paper is devoted to the kinematic design of a new six degree-of-freedom haptic device using two parallel mechanisms. The first one, called orthoglide, provides the translation motions and the second one, called agile eye, produces the rotational motions. These two motions are decoupled to simplify the direct and inverse kinematics, as it is needed for real-time control. To reduce the inertial load, the motors are fixed on the base and a transmission with two universal joints is used to transmit the rotational motions from the base to the end-effector. Two alternative wrists are proposed (i), the agile eye with three degrees of freedom or (ii) a hybrid wrist made by the assembly of a two-dof agile eye with a rotary motor. The last one is optimized to increase its stiffness and to decrease the number of moving parts.


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