Many research works on the control of nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) do not consider the actuator saturation problem and the absence of velocity sensors in practice. The actuator saturation deteriorates the tracking performance of the controller, and the use of velocity sensors increases the cost and weight of WMR systems. This paper simultaneously addresses these problems by designing a saturated output feedback controller for uncertain nonholonomic WMRs. First, a second-order input–output model of nonholonomic WMRs is developed by defining a suitable set of output equations. Then a saturated adaptive robust tracking controller is proposed without velocity measurements. For this purpose, a nonlinear saturated observer is used to estimate robot velocities. The risk of actuator saturation is effectively reduced by utilizing saturation functions in the design of the observer–controller scheme. Semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of error signals is guarantied by the Lyapunov stability analyses. Finally, simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Compared with one recent work of the author, a comparative study is also presented to illustrate that the proposed saturated controller is more effective when WMR actuators are subjected to saturation.

Path planning is one of the most important fields in robotics. Only a limited number of articles have proposed a practical way to solve the path-planning problem with moving obstacles. In this paper, a fuzzy path-planning method with two strategies is proposed to navigate a robot among unknown moving obstacles in complex environments. The static form of the environment is assumed to be known, but there is no prior knowledge about the dynamic obstacles. In this situation, an online and real-time approach is essential for avoiding collision. Also, the approach should be efficient in natural complex environments such as blood vessels. To examine the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, a drug delivery nanorobot moving in a complex environment (blood vessels) is supposed. The Monte Carlo simulation with random numbers is used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach, where the dynamic obstacles are assumed to appear in exponentially distributed random time intervals.

In this paper, a pseudoinverse-type bi-criteria minimization scheme is proposed and investigated for the redundancy resolution of robot manipulators at the joint-acceleration level. Such a bi-criteria minimization scheme combines the weighted minimum acceleration norm solution and the minimum velocity norm solution via a weighting factor. The resultant bi-criteria minimization scheme, formulated as the pseudoinverse-type solution, not only avoids the high joint-velocity and joint-acceleration phenomena but also causes the joint velocity to be near zero at the end of motion. Computer simulation results based on a 4-Degree-of-Freedom planar robot manipulator comprising revolute joints further verify the efficacy and flexibility of the proposed bi-criteria minimization scheme on robotic redundancy resolution.

This paper focuses on the derivation of valid contracted graphs (CGs) with ternary links T and quaternary links Q using characteristic strings for type synthesis of parallel mechanisms. First, some concepts on the associated linkage, the CGs, and characteristic strings are explained, and the numbers of vertices and edges for constructing CGs with T and Q are solved. Second, the relative criteria are determined for representing CGs with T and Q and identifying their isomorphism using characteristic strings. Third, some simple CGs with T and Q are represented by the characteristic strings and their isomorphic/invalid CGs are identified. Finally, many complex, valid CGs with T and Q are derived by characteristic strings.

The dynamic modeling of a flexible single-link manipulator arm with consideration of backlash in the planetary gear reducer at the joint is presented, and the influence of backlash on the dynamic response of the system is evaluated. A 2K-H planetary gear reducer with backlash was employed as an example to discuss the dynamic modeling of the sub-model of the planetary gear reducer, and the sub-model of the planetary gear reducer was established based on the lumped mass method. The flexible manipulator was regarded as an Euler--Bernoulli beam, and the dynamic model of the flexible manipulator arm with backlash in the planetary gear reducer was determined from Lagrange's equations. Based on the this model, the influence of the backlash in the planetary gear reducer and excitation frequency on the dynamic response of the system were evaluated through simulation, and the results showed that the dynamic response of the system is sensitive to the backlash and the excitation frequency simultaneously, which provides a theoretical foundation for improvement of dynamic modeling and control of the flexible manipulator arm.

In this paper, an adaptive force reflection scheme is proposed for bilateral teleoperation. In order to achieve an ideal telepresence performance while keeping the system stable, the force reflection algorithm needs to take both the human force and the contact force into consideration. An observer based on the feature of the human operator is designed to estimate the force applied on the master device. The reflected force is calculated by performing the orthogonal decomposition of the contact force, and is adjusted adaptively according to the estimated human force. The direction of the reflected force becomes a key consideration in the design process, so the proposed approach has an advantage in the guiding contact task. Based on the small gain theorem, the master device with the force reflection scheme is proved to be input-to-output stable, and the derivation for stability criterion of the closed-loop teleoperation system is also given. The results of simulations and experiments on a 6-degree of freedom teleoperation system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Human rhythmic movement is generated by central pattern generators (CPGs), and their application to robot control has attracted interest of many scientists. But the coupling relationship between the central nervous system and the CPG network with external inputs is still not unveiled. According to biological experiment results, the CPG network is controlled by the neural system; in other words, the interaction between the central nervous system and the CPG network can control human movement effectively. This paper offers a complex human locomotion model, which illustrates the coupling relationship between the central nervous system and the CPG network with proprioception. Based on Matsuoka's CPG model (K. Matsuoka, Biol. Cybern. 52(6), 367–376 (1985)), the stability and robustness of the CPG network are analyzed with external inputs. In order to simulate the coupling relationship, the Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network is used to simulate the cerebral cortex, and the Credit-Assignment Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller algorithm is employed to realize the locomotion mode conversion. A seven-link biped robot is chosen to simulate the walking gait. The main discoveries include: (1) the output of a new CPG network, which is stable and robust, can be treated as proprioception. Proprioception provides the central nervous system with the information about all joint angles; (2) analysis on a new locomotion model reveals that the cerebral cortex can modulate CPG parameters, leading to adjustment in walking gait.

Strawberry is a very delicate fruit that requires special treatment during harvesting. A hierarchical control scheme is proposed based on a fuzzy controller for the force regulation of the gripper and proper grasping criteria, that can detect misplaced strawberries on the gripper or uneven distribution of forces. The design of the gripper and the controller are based on conducted experiments to measure the maximum gripping force and the required detachment force under a variety of detachment techniques. It is demonstrated that the hand motion for detaching the fruit from the stem has a significant role in the process because it can reduce the required force. By analysing those results a robotic gripper with pressure profile sensors is developed that demonstrates an efficiency comparable to the human hand for strawberry grasping. The designed gripper and fuzzy controller performance is tested with a considerable number of fresh fruits to demonstrate the effectiveness to the uncertainties of strawberry grasping.

This paper presents a novel approach for the description of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) tasks that involve two-arm coordination, and where tasks are described by the relative pose between the human hand and the robot hand. We develop a unified kinematic model that takes into account the human-robot system from a holistic point of view, and we also propose a kinematic control strategy for pHRI that comprises different levels of shared autonomy. Since the kinematic model takes into account the complete human-robot interaction system and the kinematic control law is closed loop at the interaction level, the kinematic constraints of the task are enforced during its execution. Experiments are performed in order to validate the proposed approach, including a particular case where the robot controls the human arm by means of functional electrical stimulation (FES), which may potentially provide useful solutions for the interaction between assistant robots and impaired individuals (e.g., quadriplegics and hemiplegics).

This paper deals with the design of 3-legged distributed-compliance XYZ compliant parallel manipulators (CPMs) with minimised parasitic rotations, based on the kinematically decoupled 3-PPPRR (P: prismatic joint, and R: revolute joint) and 3-PPPR translational parallel mechanisms (TPMs). The designs are firstly proposed using the kinematic substitution approach, with the help of the stiffness center (SC) overlapping based approach. This is done by an appropriate embedded arrangement so that all of the SCs associated with the passive compliant modules overlap at the point where all of the input forces applied at the input stages intersect. Kinematostatic modelling and characteristic analysis are then carried out for the proposed large-range 3-PPPRR XYZ CPM with overlapping SCs. The results from finite element analysis (FEA) are compared to the characteristics found for the developed analytical models, as are experimental testing results (primary motion) from the prototyped 3-PPPRR XYZ CPM with overlapping SCs. Finally, issues on large-range motion and dynamics of such designs are discussed, as are possible improvements of the actuated compliant P joint. It is shown that the potential merits of the designs presented here include a) minimised parasitic rotations by only using three identical compliant legs; b) compact configurations and small size due to the use of embedded designs; c) approximately kinematostatically decoupled designs capable of easy controls; and d) monolithic fabrication for each leg using existing planar manufacturing technologies such as electric discharge machining (EDM).

A crucial part of probabilistic roadmap planners is the nearest neighbor search, which is typically done by exact methods. Unfortunately, searching the neighbors can become a major bottleneck for the performance. This can occur when the roadmap size grows especially in high-dimensional spaces. In this paper, we investigate how well the approximate nearest neighbor searching works with probabilistic roadmap planners. We propose a method that is based on the locality-sensitive hashing and show that it can speed up the construction of the roadmap considerably without reducing the quality of the produced roadmap.

In this paper, a novel 3(RPSP)-S fully spherical parallel manipulator (SPM) is introduced. Also, an innovative method based on the geometry of the manipulator is presented for solving the forward position problem of the manipulator. The presented method provides a framework for the future research to solve the forward position problem of the other fully spherical PMs (for examples 3(UPS)-S and 3(RSS)-S). In the proposed method, two coupled trigonometric equations are obtained by utilizing the geometry of the manipulator and Rodrigues' rotation formula. Using Bezout's elimination technique, the two coupled equations lead to a polynomial of degree eight. We show that the polynomial is minimal and optimal. Furthermore, the other method is proposed for selecting an admissible solution of the forward position problem. This algorithm is required to control modeling and dynamic simulations.

While Sit-to-Stand and Stand-to-Sit are routine activities and are crucial pre-requisites to walking and running their underlying dynamics are poorly understood. Furthermore, the potential for using these movements to regenerate energy in energy-sensitive devices such as orthoses, prostheses and humanoid robots has never been examined. Insights in this domain can lead to more energy-efficient prosthesis, orthosis and humanoid robot designs. OBJECTIVES: The objectives are two-fold: first, to determine how much energy can be regenerated during standard movements related to transitions between sitting and standing on a scale humanoid model and second, to determine if the chosen actuator could produce better results if the gear ratio were modified. This manuscript's main contribution to the literature is by showing which joint provides the most regenerative effect during transitions between sitting and standing. MODEL DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION: Joint trajectories from existing biomechanics trials of sitting and standing transitions were fed into a 1/10 scale model of a humanoid robot. The robot model, developed in MapleSim, is comprised of standard and off-the-shelf subcomponents, including amplifier, NiMH battery and Robotis Dynamixel RX-28 actuators. RESULTS: Using the RX-28 actuator, the ankle, knee and hip joints all show a degree of regenerative effects, the hip demonstrates the most dramatic levels during the transition from standing to sitting. This contrasts with recent publications which show that the knee has the most important regenerative effects during walking and running. It is also found that for under 3 degree trajectory error the regenerative effect is best for all joints when the gear ratio is increased from the RX-28's 193:1 value to a value of approximately 760:1 for the ankle, 630:1 for the knee and 600:1 for the hip. CONCLUSIONS: During transitions between sitting and standing the greatest potential for regeneration occurs in the hips. Therefore, systems designed to implement regenerative effects between sitting and standing need to include subsystems at the hip for maximum regenerative effects.

In this paper, a consensus-based control strategy is presented to gather formation for a group of differential-wheeled robots. The formation shape and the avoidance of collisions between robots are obtained by exploiting the properties of weighted graphs. Since mobile robots are supposed to move in unknown environments, the presented approach to multi-robot coordination has been extended in order to include obstacle avoidance. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy has been demonstrated by means of analytical proofs. Moreover, results of simulations and experiments on real robots are provided for validation purposes.

In this paper, two methods are proposed and implemented for collision detection between the robot and a human based on fuzzy identification and time series modelling. Both methods include a collision detection system for each joint of the robot that is trained to approximate the external torque. In addition, the proposed methods are able to detect the occurrence of a collision, the link that collided and to some extent the magnitude of the collision without using the explicit model of the robot. Since the speed of the detection is of critical importance for mitigating the danger, attention is paid to recognise a collision as soon as possible. Experimental results conducted with a KUKALWR manipulator using two joints in planar motion, verify the validity on both methods.

This paper deals with the walking control problem of a compass-like biped robot with underactuated ankles in the framework of hybrid control systems. The compass-like biped robot is equipped with a constraint mechanism to lock the hip angle when the swing leg retracts. First, based on the Poincare return map, a limit cycle gait is obtained, and the stability of the gait is also checked. Then, a method based on transverse coordinate transformation is introduced to transform the problem of tracking a desired limit cycle into the stabilization problem of a linear time-invariant impulsive system. A feedback control design for stabilizing the walking gait is then presented. Finally, comparisons to several existing approaches for the similar model are provided to demonstrate the advantages of our proposed approach.

This paper investigates worst-case analysis of a moving obstacle avoidance algorithm for unmanned vehicles in a dynamic environment in the presence of uncertainties and variations. Automatic worst-case search algorithms are developed based on optimization techniques, and illustrated by a Pioneer robot with a moving obstacle avoidance algorithm developed using the potential field method. The uncertainties in physical parameters, sensor measurements, and even the model structure of the robot are taken into account in the worst-case analysis. The minimum distance to a moving obstacle is considered as an objective function in automatic search process. It is demonstrated that a local nonlinear optimization method may not be adequate, and global optimization techniques are necessary to provide reliable worst-case analysis. The Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to demonstrate that the proposed automatic search methods provide a significant advantage over random sampling approaches.

This paper presents a persistent method for the identification problem of open-chained robotic systems. Based on the Projection Equation, a new, direct method to collect the dynamic and friction parameters in linear form is worked out. However, in this form, linear dependencies in the parameters occur and they are canceled out with the help of the QR algorithm. The obtained linear independent parameters are the base parameters of the system. To ensure a good excitation, the identification is improved by using optimized trajectories defined by Fourier-series, taking also physical constraints into account. The evaluation of the dynamic robot parameters is realized with a least squares error optimization. Furthermore, the result strongly depends on a special choice of weighting matrices for the error. Experimental results for a seven-axes robotic system (standard six-axes industrial manipulator mounted on a linear axis) are presented in detail. Additionally, the influence of temperature effects to base parameter changes is discussed.

Based on product of exponentials (POE) formula, three explicit error models are given in this paper for kinematic calibration of serial robot through measuring its end-effector positions. To obtain these error models, the tool frame should be chosen as reference frame at first, and then each position–error-related segment in the error models using pose measurement should be selected. And during kinematic parameter identification, all the errors in joint twists are identifiable, and the initial transformation errors and the joint zero-position errors can be identified conditionally. Namely, the initial transformation errors are identifiable if they do not contain orientation errors. And the joint zero-position errors are identifiable when a robot only consists of prismatic joints and the coordinates of its joint twists are linearly independent.

The effectiveness of this calibration method has been validated by simulations and experiments. The results show that: (1) the identification algorithms are robust and practical. (2) The method of position measurement is superior to that of pose measurement.

Parallel mechanisms possess several advantages such as the possibilities for high acceleration and high accuracy positioning of the end effector. However, most of the proposed parallel manipulators suffer from a limited workspace. In this paper, a novel 6-DOF parallel manipulator with coaxial actuated arms is introduced. Since parallel mechanisms have more workspace limitations compared to that of serial mechanisms, determination of the workspace in parallel manipulators is of the utmost importance. For finding position, angular velocity, and acceleration, in this paper, inverse and forward kinematics of the mechanism are studied and after presenting the workspace limitations, workspace analysis of the hexarot manipulator is performed by using MATLAB software. Next, using the obtained cloud of points from simulation, the overall borders of the workspace are illustrated. Finally, it is shown that this manipulator has the important benefits of combining a large positional workspace in relation to its footprint with a sizable range of platform rotations.