CONTROL OF REMOTELY OPERATED UNDERWATER VEHICLE USING MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL

This paper focuses on application of model predictive control on attitude control of remotely operated underwater vehicle. These vehicles are used in scientific, defence and oceanography applications. Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) considered in this paper is nonlinear model and complex. MPC is applied on ROV model to track in desired set point trajectories in the presence of uncertainties. Simulation has been carried out in MATLAB environment. Model Predictive Control has given significantly good results compared to PID, Adaptive and Variable structure control.

The numerical simulation of the generation of lower-band VLF chorus using a quasi-broadband Vlasov Hybrid Simulation code

In this paper, we perform the numerical modelling of lower-band VLF chorus in the earth’s magnetosphere. Assuming parallel propagation the 1d3v code has one spatial dimension z along the ambient magnetic field, which has a parabolic z dependence about the equator. The method used is Vlasov Hybrid Simulation (VHS) also known in the literature as the method of Kinetic Phase Point Trajectories (Nunn in Computer Physics Comms 60:1–25, 1990, J Computational Phys 108(1):180–196, 1993; Kazeminezhad et al. in Phys Rev E67:026704, 2003). The method is straightforward and easy to program, and robust against distribution function filamentation. Importantly, VHS does not invoke unphysical smoothing of the distribution function. Previous versions of the VLF/VHS code had a narrow bandwidth ~ 100 Hz, which enabled simulation of a wide variety of discrete triggered emissions. The present quasi-broadband VHS code has a bandwidth of ~ 3000 Hz, which is far more realistic for the simulation of chorus in its entirety. Further, the quasi-broadband code does not require artificial saturation, and does not need to employ matched filtering to accommodate large spatial frequency gradients. The aim of this paper which has been achieved is to produce VLF chorus Vlasov simulations employing a systematic variety of triggering input signals, namely key down, single pulse, PLHR, and broadband hiss. Graphical Abstract

Enhancing learning capabilities of movement primitives under distributed probabilistic framework for flexible assembly tasks

This paper presents a novel probabilistic distributed framework based on movement primitives for flexible robot assembly. Since the modern advanced industrial cell usually deals with various scenarios that are not fixed via-point trajectories but highly reconfigurable tasks, the industrial robots used in these applications must be capable of adapting and learning new in-demand skills without programming experts. Therefore, we propose a probabilistic framework that could accommodate various learning abilities trained with different movement-primitive datasets, separately. Derived from the Bayesian Committee Machine, this framework could infer new adapting trajectories with weighted contributions of each training dataset. To verify the feasibility of our proposed imitation learning framework, the simulation comparison with the state-of-the-art movement learning framework task-parametrised GMM is conducted. Several key aspects, such as generalisation capability, learning accuracy and computation expense, are discussed and compared. Moreover, two real-world experiments, i.e. riveting picking and nutplate picking, are further tested with the YuMi collaborative robot to verify the application feasibility in industrial assembly manufacturing.

The Numerical Simulation of the Generation of Lower Band VLF Chorus Using a Quasi-Broadband Vlasov Hybrid Simulation Code

In this paper we perform the numerical modelling of lower band VLF chorus in the earth’s magnetosphere. Assuming parallel propagation the 1d3v code has one spatial dimension z along the ambient magnetic field, which has a parabolic z dependence about the equator. The method used is Vlasov Hybrid Simulation (VHS) also known in the literature as the method of Kinetic Phase Point Trajectories (Nunn 1990,1993; Kazeminezhad et al. 2003). The method is straightforward and easy to program, and robust against distribution function filamentation. Importantly VHS does not invoke unphysical smoothing of the distribution function. Previous versions of the VLF/VHS code had a narrow bandwidth ~100Hz, which enabled simulation of a wide variety of discrete triggered emissions. The present quasi-broadband VHS code has a bandwidth of ~3000Hz, which is far more realistic for the simulation of chorus in its entirety. Further the quasi-broadband code does not require artificial saturation, and does not need to employ matched filtering to accommodate large spatial frequency gradients. The aim of this paper which has been achieved is to produce VLF chorus Vlasov simulations employing a systematic variety of triggering input signals, namely key down, single pulse, PLHR, and broadband hiss.

Human-Like Posture Correction for Seven-Degree-of-Freedom Robotic Arm

Owing to advancements in robotics, researchers have been focusing on integrating humanoid robots into actual environments. Most humanoid robots are equipped with seven-degree-of-freedom (DoF) arms that allow them to be flexible in different scenarios. The controller of a 7-DoF robotic arm must select one solution among the infinite sets of solutions for a given inverse kinematics problem. To date, no suitable approach has been developed for identifying appropriate human-like postures for a robotic arm with an offset wrist configuration. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm that considers the movement of the human arm to consistently find a suitable human-like posture. First, a one-class support vector machine model is employed to classify human-like postures. Then, the algorithm uses the redundancy characteristic of a 7-DoF robotic arm with a linear regression model to enhance the search of human-like postures. Finally, the proposed algorithm is demonstrated in simulation, where it successfully optimized point-to-point trajectories by modifying only the endpoint posture.

Ground manoeuvres of aircrafts in narrow spaces by all-wheel-steering

The present analysis deals with the ground taxiing of aircrafts and considers, in particular, their turning at rather low speed with very small path radii among obstacles that may be very close to each other, for example inside the hangars or on the flight decks of the aircraft carriers where other planes stand stationary. To succeed in this operation, it is crucial to optimize the path and avoid dangerous collisions or, more generally, the interference in the ground projection between the obstacles and the band enclosing all the point trajectories of the plane. The essential innovation here proposed for this purpose consists in making all the wheels of the undercarriage steerable, assuming electrically motorized struts, and in searching for the best correlation among the steering angles in order to optimize the path. The geometrical and dynamical nonlinearities due to the relatively large steering angles, to the changes of the cornering stiffness with the vertical loads on the wheels and to the inertial and the aerodynamic forces will be included in the analysis. The rollover critical speeds will be calculated on varying the path radius.

Simultaneous completion and spatiotemporal grouping of corrupted motion tracks

Given an unordered list of 2D or 3D point trajectories corrupted by noise and partial observations, in this paper we introduce a framework to simultaneously recover the incomplete motion tracks and group the points into spatially and temporally coherent clusters. This advances existing work, which only addresses partial problems and without considering a unified and unsupervised solution. We cast this problem as a matrix completion one, in which point tracks are arranged into a matrix with the missing entries set as zeros. In order to perform the double clustering, the measurement matrix is assumed to be drawn from a dual union of spatiotemporal subspaces. The bases and the dimensionality for these subspaces, the affinity matrices used to encode the temporal and spatial clusters to which each point belongs, and the non-visible tracks, are then jointly estimated via augmented Lagrange multipliers in polynomial time. A thorough evaluation on incomplete motion tracks for multiple-object typologies shows that the accuracy of the matrix we recover compares favorably to that obtained with existing low-rank matrix completion methods, specially under noisy measurements. In addition, besides recovering the incomplete tracks, the point trajectories are directly grouped into different object instances, and a number of semantically meaningful temporal primitive actions are automatically discovered.

Energy-saving optimization method for point-to-point trajectories planned via standard primitives in 1-DoF mechatronic systems

In this work, an analytical methodology to minimize the energy expenditure of mechatronic systems performing point-to-point (PTP) trajectories based on well-known motion primitives is developed and validated. Both PTP trajectory profiles commonly used in industrial motor drives and more complex ones are investigated. Focusing on generic 1-DoF mechatronic systems moving a constant inertia load (e.g., elevators, cranes, CNC machines, Cartesian axis) and possibly equipped or retrofitted with regenerative devices, the consumed energy formulation is firstly derived. Then, the analytical optimization considering all the selected PTP trajectory profiles is computed and a generic closed-form solution is determined. Finally, numerical and experimental evaluations are done showing the effectiveness of the theoretical results and proposed methodology. In addition, all the different trajectories are compared with respect to energy consumption.

Knee loading in OA subjects is correlated to flexion and adduction moments and to contact point locations

This study evaluated the association of contact point locations with the knee medial and lateral contact force (Fmed, Flat) alterations in OA and healthy subjects. A musculoskeletal model of the lower limb with subject-specific tibiofemoral contact point trajectories was used to estimate the Fmed and Flat in ten healthy and twelve OA subjects during treadmill gait. Regression analyses were performed to evaluate the correlation of the contact point locations, knee adduction moment (KAM), knee flexion moment (KFM), frontal plane alignment, and gait speed with the Fmed and Flat. Medial contact point locations in the medial–lateral direction showed a poor correlation with the Fmed in OA (R2 = 0.13, p = 0.01) and healthy (R2 = 0.24, p = 0.001) subjects. Anterior–posterior location of the contact points also showed a poor correlation with the Fmed of OA subjects (R2 = 0.32, p < 0.001). Across all subjects, KAM and KFM remained the best predictors of the Fmed and Flat, respectively (R2 between 0.62 and 0.69). Results suggest different mechanisms of contact force distribution in OA joints. The variations in the location of the contact points participate partially to explains the Fmed variations in OA subjects together with the KFM and KAM.