scholarly journals Optimal Reconfiguration of a Parallel Robot for Forward Singularities Avoidance in Rehabilitation Therapies. A Comparison via Different Optimization Methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Llopis-Albert ◽  
Francisco Valero ◽  
Vicente Mata ◽  
José L. Pulloquinga ◽  
Pau Zamora-Ortiz ◽  
...  

This paper presents an efficient algorithm for the reconfiguration of a parallel kinematic manipulator with four degrees of freedom. The reconfiguration of the parallel manipulator is posed as a nonlinear optimization problem where the design variables correspond to the anchoring points of the limbs of the robot on the fixed platform. The penalty function minimizes the forces applied by the actuators during a specific trajectory. Some constraints are imposed to avoid forward singularities and guarantee the feasibility of the active generalized coordinates for a certain trajectory. The results are compared with different optimization approaches with the aim of avoiding getting trapped into a local minimum and undergoing forward singularities. The comparison covers evolutionary algorithms, heuristics optimizers, multistrategy algorithms, and gradient-based optimizers. The proposed methodology has been successfully tested on an actual parallel robot for different trajectories.

Author(s):  
Carlos Llopis-Albert ◽  
Francisco Valero ◽  
Vicente Mata ◽  
Rafael J. Escarabajal ◽  
Pau Zamora-Ortiz ◽  
...  

<p>The positioning of the anchoring points of a Parallel Kinematic Manipulator has an important impact on its later performance. This paper presents an optimization problem to deal with the reconfiguration of a Parallel Kinematic manipulator with four degrees of freedom and the corresponding algorithms to address such problem, with the subsequent test on an actual robot. The cost function minimizes the forces applied by the actuators along the trajectory and considers singular positions and the feasibility of the active generalized coordinates. Results are compared among different algorithms, including evolutionary, heuristics, multi-strategy and gradient-based optimizers.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 789-790 ◽  
pp. 723-734
Author(s):  
Xing Guo Lu ◽  
Ming Liu ◽  
Min Xiu Kong

This work tends to deal with the multi-objective dynamic optimization problem of a three translational degrees of freedom parallel robot. Two global dynamic indices are proposed as the objective functions for the dynamic optimization: the index of dynamic dexterity, the index describing the dynamic fluctuation effects. The length of the linkages and the circumradius of the platforms were chosen as the design variables. A multi-objective optimal design problem, including constrains on the actuating and passive joint angle limits and geometrical interference is then formulated to find the Pareto solutions for the robot in a desired workspace. The Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) is adopted to solve the constrained nonlinear multi-objective optimization problem. The simulation results obtained shows that the robot can achieve better dynamic dexterity and less dynamic fluctuation simultaneously after the optimization.


Author(s):  
ZHENXIAO GAO ◽  
TIANYUAN XIAO ◽  
WENHUI FAN

Collaborative optimization (CO) method is widely used in solving multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) problems, yet its computation requirement has been an obstacle to the applications, leading to doubts about CO's convergence property. The feasible domain of CO problem is first examined and it is proven that feasible domain remains the same during the CO formulation. So is the same with extreme points. Then based on contemporary research conclusion that the system-level optimization problem suffers from inherent computational difficulties, it is further pointed out that the employment of meta-heuristic optimization methods in CO could eliminate these difficulties. To make CO more computational feasible, a new method collaborative optimization with dimension reduction (CODR) is proposed. It focused on optimization dimension reduction and lets local copy of common shared design variables equal system shared design variables directly. Thus, the number of dimensions that CODR could reduce equal the number of common shared design variables. Numerical experiment suggests that CODR reduces computations greatly without losing of optimization accuracy.


2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (6) ◽  
pp. 1236-1245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan P. Bowling ◽  
ChangHwan Kim

This article explores the effect that velocities have on a nonredundant robotic manipulator’s ability to accelerate its end-effector, as well as to apply forces/moments to the environment at the end-effector. This work considers velocity forces, including Coriolis forces, and the reduction of actuator torque with rotor velocity described by the speed-torque curve, at a particular configuration of a manipulator. The focus here is on nonredundant manipulators with as many actuators as degrees-of-freedom. Analysis of the velocity forces is accomplished using optimization techniques, where the optimization problem consists of an objective function and constraints which are all purely quadratic forms, yielding a nonconvex problem. Dialytic elimination is used to find the globally optimal solution to this problem. The proposed method does not use iterative numerical optimization methods. The PUMA 560 manipulator is used as an example to illustrate this methodology. The methodology provides an analytical analysis of the velocity forces which insures that the globally optimal solution to the associated optimization problem is found.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Stepanenko ◽  
Ilian A. Bonev ◽  
Dimiter Zlatanov

We present a novel 4-DOF (degrees of freedom) parallel robot designed for five-axis micromachining applications. Two of its five telescoping legs operate simultaneously, thus acting as an extensible parallelogram linkage, and in conjunction with two other legs control the position of the tooltip. The fifth leg controls the tilt of the end-effector (a spindle), while a turntable fixed at the base of the robot controls the swivel of the workpiece. The robot is capable of tilting its end-effector up to 90 deg, for any tooltip position. In this paper, we study the mobility of the new parallel kinematic machine (PKM), describe its inverse and direct kinematic models, then study its singularities, and analyze its workspace. Finally, we propose a potential mechanical design for this PKM utilizing telescopic actuators as well as the procedure for optimizing it. In addition, we discuss the possibility of using constant-length legs and base-mounted linear actuators in order to increase the volume of the workspace.


Author(s):  
Kwon-Hee Lee ◽  
Ji-In Heo

In order to achieve greater fuel efficiency and energy conservation, the reduction of weight and enhancement of the performance of structures has been sought. In general, there are two approaches to reducing structural weight. One of which is to use materials that are lighter than steel and the other is to redesign the structure. However, conventional structural optimization methods using gradient-based algorithm directly have difficulties in defining complex shape design variables and preventing mesh distortions. To overcome these difficulties a metamodel-based optimization method is introduced in order to replace the true response by an approximate one. This research presents four case studies of structural design using a metamodel-based approximation model for weight reduction or performance enhancement.


Author(s):  
M. Bremicker ◽  
H. Eschenauer

Abstract The range of application of structural optimization methods can be considerably enlarged by using decomposition techniques. In this paper a novel procedure is introduced to deal with such problems more efficiently. The mechanical structure resp. system is divided into several subsystems splitting up the design variables, objective functions, and constraints accordingly. The boundary state quantities of the subsystems and the global (i.e. subsystem overlapping) functions are approximated by a sensitivity analysis of the entire system using suitable approximation concepts. It is thus possible to optimize the subsystems independently. Variables, objective functions and constraints can be chosen arbitrarily; all coupling information is obtained from the sensitivity analysis by means of global information. The application of this technique is demonstrated by a two-dimensional shape optimization problem.


Author(s):  
Alexander O. Pugachev

The study deals with optimization of leakage and rotordynamic characteristics of liquid annular seals. A nonlinear constrained multi-objective optimization problem is considered. An objective function is a weighted sum of leakage and whirl-frequency ratio of the seal. Side constraints are imposed on design variables. The seal consists of two rings which shape can be either cylinder or converging taper or diverging taper. There are four design variables — seal length and diameters of the rings. A non-gradient-based method is used for solving the optimization problem. Analysis of the seal performance is based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A full 3D eccentric CFD model of the seal including upstream and downstream regions is constructed in ANSYS CFX. The solution procedures for prediction of rotordynamic coefficients are discussed and compared. The whirling rotor method under the assumption of centered circular orbit is used in optimization runs. The CFD model of the seal is validated against experimental data taken from the literature. A mesh independence study is carried out. An optimization environment includes automatic grid generation, parallel CFD calculations of the seal, and optimization algorithm. Two optimization runs corresponding to low-speed and high-speed cases are performed. Seals with improved characteristics include near-cylindrical and divergent-tapered rings. Performance of three seals from the Pareto set is calculated for different rotational speeds and inlet pressures. Generally, the rotordynamic performance degrades at other operating conditions. Additional study for the seals with enlarged clearance is carried out to model effect of wear.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Raghdan J. AlKhoury ◽  
Suraj Joshi ◽  
Rama B. Bhat ◽  
Shiping Ma

Motive forces by muscles are applied to different parts of the human body in a periodic fashion when walking at a uniform rate. In this study, the whole human body is modeled as a multidegree of freedom (MDOF) system with seven degrees of freedom. In view of the changing contact conditions with the ground due to alternating feet movements, the system under study is considered piecewise time invariant for each half-period when one foot is in contact with the ground. Forces transmitted from the body to the ground while walking at a normal pace are experimentally measured and numerically simulated. Fourth-order Runge-Kutta method is employed to numerically simulate the forces acting on different masses of the body. An optimization problem is formulated with the squared difference between the measured and simulated forces transmitted to the ground as the objective function, and the motive forces on the body masses as the design variables to solve.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew P. J. Stanley ◽  
Andrew Ning

Abstract. The wind farm layout optimization problem is notoriously difficult to solve because of the large number of design variables and extreme multimodality of the design space. Because of the multimodality of the space and the often discontinuous models used in wind farm modeling, the wind industry is heavily dependent on gradient-free techniques for wind farm layout optimization. Unfortunately, the computational expense required with these methods scales poorly with increasing numbers of variables. Thus, many companies and researchers have been limited in the size of wind farms they can optimize. To solve these issues, we present the boundary-grid parameterization. This parameterization uses only five variables to define the layout of a wind farm with any number of turbines. For a 100-turbine wind farm, we show that optimizing the five variables of the boundary-grid method produces wind farms that perform just as well as farms where the location of each turbine is optimized individually, which requires 200 design variables. Our presented method facilitates the study and both gradient-free and gradient-based optimization of large wind farms, something that has traditionally been less scalable with increasing numbers of design variables.


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