An Efficient Stochastic Constrained Path Planner for Redundant Manipulators

This brief proposes a novel stochastic method that exploits the particular kinematics of mechanisms with redundant actuation and a well-known manipulability measure to track the desired end-effector task-space motion in an efficient manner. Whilst closed-form optimal solutions to maximise manipulability along a desired trajectory have been proposed in the literature, the solvers become unfeasible in the presence of obstacles. A manageable alternative to functional motion planning is thus proposed that exploits the inherent characteristics of null-space configurations to construct a generic solution able to improve manipulability along a task-space trajectory in the presence of obstacles. The proposed Stochastic Constrained Optimization (SCO) solution remains close to optimal whilst exhibiting computational tractability, being an attractive proposition for implementation on real robots, as shown with results in challenging simulation scenarios, as well as with a real 7R Sawyer manipulator, during surface conditioning tasks.

Realisation of a Novel Functionally Redundant Actuation System for a Railway Track-Switch

This paper focuses on modelling, control, realisation and performance analysis of a full-scale demonstrator for a novel railway track switch. For over a century, railway track switches (or points) have been allowing trains to safely change between routes. As they are safety-critical elements of the rail network, when they fail, the signalling system will prevent trains from using that route. This means poor reliability (or lack of availability) leads to significant delays and costs; hence there is huge interest from researchers and engineers in improving the overall reliability of track switches. This paper presents new results, which represent a meaningful first step toward a revolution in the way track switches are actuated. A “REPOINT-Light” railway track switch demonstrator is introduced which uses a new concept of locking to allow redundant actuation with three actuator bearers operating under closed-loop feedback control. The new concept, its control system and its mechanical viability are tested in experiments at the Great Central Railway in the UK. To support the design of the actuators and the control system, a dynamic simulation model is developed by co-simulation involving Simulink and Simpack. The experimental results presented are used to validate the models and the paper discusses how the models themselves are used as the vehicle for the design of feedback controllers. Virtual testing of the controllers in simulation is a vital step prior to the implementation and deployment of the controllers in the demonstrator switch. The major contribution of this work is demonstrating, for the first time at full scale on a real-world track switch, that it is possible to use one-out-of-three actuator redundancy to provide fault-tolerant operation of railway track switch.

Trajectory Tracking Control Study of a New Parallel Mechanism with Redundant Actuation

Parallel mechanisms with redundant actuation are attracting numerous scholars’ research interest due to their inherent advantages. In this paper, an efficient trajectory tracking control scheme for the new redundantly actuated parallel mechanism by integrating force/position hybrid control with the combination of inertia feed-forward control and back propagation (BP) neural network PID control is proposed. The dynamic models including the joint space and task space are formulated explicitly in efficient and compact form by means of the principle of virtual work and d’Alembert formulations. The force/position hybrid control is implemented to perform trajectory tracking and optimize the driving force configuration in MATLAB/Simulink environment, before being applied to an actual parallel mechanism. The illustrative simulation results demonstrate that the force/position hybrid control scheme is available to provide good trajectory tracking performance. Simultaneously, the feasibility of the proposed control scheme is verified by comparison analysis with the aforementioned conventional control method.

Fractional-order internal model control algorithm based on the force/position control structure of redundant actuation parallel robot

This article proposes a new control structure for the complex redundant actuation parallel robot based on force/position hybrid control structure. The traditional proportional–integral–derivative control method, integer-order internal model control method and fractional-filter internal model control–proportional–derivative control method are used in the position structure of force/position hybrid control. The fractional-filter internal model control–proportional–derivative control method is used in the position loop of the permanent magnet synchronous motor to reduce the position error. A fractional-order theory with the internal model control method is used in redundant actuation force control structure, which can improve the control precision of the driving force of the parallel robot. The Admas/Matlab simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms other methods and can obtain good robustness and tracking performance.