Aspects on the Functional Optimization of an Industrial Robot Structure Implemented in Military Logistical Activities

The authors of the present paper outline aspects on the optimization of the a TR-type industrial robot structure movements in order to generate the manipulation space to a flexible manufacturing cell with a parallel organization designed for the pallet and container operation of paint-filled recipients. The paper contains the direct and inverted geometrical modelling of the robot structure using the 3*3 rotation matrix method and the algebra method. After knowing the characteristic point movement of the prehension device, graphics for the variation of the TR robot's general coordinates and for the trajectory of the prehension device's characteristic point of its work space were performed by using the Mathematica 6.0 soft. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Ground Contact Detection with Shortstroke Buttons for Biped Robots

Robust walking motion of humanoid robots requires a sensor system that can accurately sense the robot's state and its environment. Especially in case the ground is not modeled and uneven, information about the contact state is crucial to initiate an appropriate response. Many humanoid robots use strain gauge-based force/torque sensors to obtain information about the contact state. In this paper, we propose the integration of shortstroke buttons in the foot design to detect ground contact faster and more reliably. Simulation results with our robot Lola suggest that impact forces in case of an unexpected ground contact can be reduced significantly by integrating these sensors. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On a module containment theorem of piecewise continuous almost periodic functions and its application

This paper is concentrated on giving a module containment theorem for piecewise continuous almost periodic functions (pcap function for short). One first analyses the relationship between the translation number set and some Fourier exponents of a pcap function. And then, combining with Kronecker’s theorem, a module containment theorem for a pcap function is established for the first time. As an application, the module structure of a pcap solution for an impulsive differential equation is characterized. Some remarks and a corollary are given to show the advantage of the module containment theorem.     

On the controllability of a robot arm

Considered is the rotation of a robot arm or rod in a horizontal plane about an axis through the arm's fixed end and driven by a motor whose torque is controlled. The model was derived and investigated computationally by Sakawa and co-authors in [7] for the case that the arm is described as a homogeneous Euler beam. The resulting equation of motion is a partial differential equation of the type of a wave equation which is linear with respect to the state, if the control is fixed, and non-linear with respect to the control. Considered is the problem of steering the beam, within a given time interval, from the position of rest for the angle zero into the position of rest under a certain given angle. At first we show that, for every L²-control, there is exactly one (weak) solution of the initial boundary value problem which describes the vibrating system without the end condition. Then we show that the problem of controllability is equivalent to a non-linear moment problem. This, however, is not exactly solvable. Therefore, an iteration method is developed which leads to an approximate solution of sufficient accuracy in two steps. This method is numerically implemented and demonstrated by an example. © 1998 by B. G. Teubner Stuttgart–John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

A Dynamic Model for a Hybrid Articulated Robot

The dynamic modeling of hybrid systems, consisting of flexible and rigid parts results in large partial differential equation systems (PDE). With the assumption of small deflections and the Ritz expansion the PDE can be approximated by an ordinary differential equation system (ODE) but the number of degrees of freedom is generally high. In this paper a hybrid articulated robot with 2 flexible links and 6 joints is under consideration. The joints are equipped with Harmonic Drive gears with high gear ratio but relative low stiffness. Therefore additionally degrees of freedom are introduced for the elastic deflection of the gears. The links are modeled with flexibility in two bending directions and in torsional sense. To be able to achieve structured equations the projection equation in subsystem representation is used. The projection equation is based on the momentum and the angular momentum equations of each single finite or infinitesimal body which are projected into the space of minimal coordinates and subsequently are summed up. Groups of bodies are collected to the so called subsystems with separated describing velocities. These subsystems are linked together with the kinematical chain. Because the robot is tree structured it is possible to obtain an explicit expression for the second derivatives of the minimal coordinates with a recursive scheme (O(n) efficiency). The robot is controlled with a feed forward controller and a linear PD joint controller. Simulation results and measured data are presented and compared. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Mathematical modelling and dynamic response of a multi-straight-line path tracing flexible robot manipulator with rotating-prismatic joint

In this study, mathematical modelling and dynamic response of a flexible robot manipulator with rotating-prismatic joint are investigated. The tip end of the flexible robot manipulator traces a multi-straight-line path under the action of an external driving torque and an axial force. Considered robot manipulator consists of a rotating prismatic joint and a sliding flexible arm with a tip mass. Flexible arm is assumed to be an Euler–Bernoulli beam carrying an end-mass. Equations of motion of the flexible manipulator are obtained by using Lagrange’s equation of motion. Effect of rotary inertia, axial shortening and gravitation is considered in the analysis. Equations of motion are solved by using fourth order Runge–Kutta method. Numerical simulations obtained by using a developed computer program are presented and physical trend of the results are discussed.     

Dynamic analysis and system identification of an LCD glass-handling robot driven by a PMSM

In this paper, Hamilton’s principle is employed to derive Lagrange’s equations of an liquid crystal display (LCD) glass-handling robot driven by a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The robot has three arms driven by two timing belts. The dynamic formulations can be expressed by one and four independent variables, which are named as the rigid and flexible models, respectively. In order to verify the dynamic formulation is correct, we reduce the flexible model to the rigid one under some assumptions. In this paper, we adopt the real-coded genetic algorithm (RGA) to identify all the parameters of the robot and PMSM simultaneously. It is found that the RGA can identify system parameters which are difficult to be measured in practical problems, for examples, the inductance, stator resistance, motor torque constant, damping coefficient of the motor and timing belts. In numerical simulations, vibrations due to flexibility of the timing belts are investigated for the angular displacements, speeds, accelerations of arms, and the horizontal and vertical displacements of the robot. The angular displacements of the robot arm and the translational positions of the robot end are obtained in the numerical simulations and experimental results. From their comparisons, it is demonstrated that identification results of the dynamic model with four independent variables present the better matching with experimental results of the system.     

A Prediction Model for State Observation and Model Predictive Control of Biped Robots

Biped walking robots present a class of mechanical systems with many different challenges such as nonlinear multi-body dynamics, a large number of degrees of freedom and unilateral contacts. The latter impose constraints for physically feasible motions and in stabilization methods as the robot can only interact due to pressure forces with the environment. This limitation can cause the system to fall under unknown disturbances such as pushing or uneven terrain. In order to face such problems, an accurate and fast model of the robot to observe the current state and predict the state evolution into the future has to be used. This work presents a nonlinear prediction model with two passive degrees of freedom (dof), point masses and compliant unilateral contacts. We show that the model is applicable for real-time model predictive optimization of the robot's motion. Experiments on the biped robot LOLA [1] underline the effectiveness of the proposed model to increase the system's long term stability under large unknown disturbances. (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Rapid fault-tolerant control prototyping for mobile robots

The main purpose of the paper is to present a fault-tolerant control system of an autonomous mobile robot. The authors present a framework for rapid prototyping of a behavior-based control system relying on tools and technologies of the Microsoft R Robotics Developer Studio. Fault detection and isolation is carried out with the help of the model-based and knowledge-based diagnostics. The first approach is developed by applying recurrent neural networks for residual generation and fuzzy logic for their evaluation. The second approach depends on scalar feature estimation and fuzzy reasoning. Basing on this information rules represented in the form of a decision table are applied for robot's behavior reconfiguration. (© 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Investigation of optimal bipedal walking gaits subject to different energy-based objective functions

Optimal bipedal walking gaits subject to different energy-based objective functions are investigated using a simple planar rigid body model of a bipedal robot with upper body, thighs and shanks. The robot's segments are connected by revolute joints actuated by electric motors. The actuators' torques are generated by a trajectory tracking controller to produce periodic walking gaits. A numerical optimization routine is used to find optimal reference trajectories for average speeds in the range of 0.3 – 2.3 m/s to investigate the influence of different objective functions. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

An Efficient Approach to the Numerical Verification for Solutions of Elliptic Differential Equations

The authors and their colleagues have developed numerical verification methods for solutions of second-order elliptic boundary value problems based on the infinite-dimensional fixed-point theorem using the Newton-like operator with appropriate approximation and constructive a priori error estimates for Poisson's equations. Many verification results show that the authors' methods are sufficiently useful when the equation has no first-order derivative. However, in the case that the equation includes the term of a first-order derivative, there is a possibility that the verification algorithm does not work even though we adopt a sufficiently accurate approximation subspace. The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative method to overcome this difficulty. Numerical examples which confirm the effectiveness of the new method are presented.     

Dynamics and stability of a hybrid serial-parallel mobile robot

Kinematics, dynamics, and stability analysis of a hybrid serial-parallel wheeled mobile robot is detailed in this paper. Privileging the advantages of both serial and parallel robots, the suggested structure will provide higher stability for heavy object manipulation by a mobile robotic system. The proposed system is made of a differentially-driven wheeled platform, a planar parallel manipulator, which is called here as star-triangle (ST) mechanism, and a serial Puma-type manipulator arm. In order to develop a comprehensive kinematics model of the robot; first it is divided into three modules, i.e. a mobile platform, a parallel ST mechanism, and a serial robot. Next, a closed-form dynamics model is derived for the whole hybrid system based on a combined Newton–Euler and Lagrange formulation. Then, a careful validation procedure is presented to verify the obtained dynamics model. Finally, using the new postural stability metric named as moment-height stability (MHS), the important role of the parallel ST mechanism for stabilizing the mobile robotic system is demonstrated. The obtained results show that the proposed hybrid serial–parallel arrangement effectively enhances the tip-over stability of the overall mobile robotic system. Hence, it can be successfully exploited to prevent tip-over instability particularly during heavy object manipulation tasks.     

Connectivity graphs on two-dimensional surfaces and their application in robotics

The problem of robot motion planning in an environment with obstacles can often be reduced to the study of connectivity of the robot's free configuration space. In turn, space connectivity can be analysed via the corresponding connectivity graph. For two-degree-of-freedom robots, the free configuration space presents a two-dimensional (2D) surface—a compact subspace of a 2D orientable compact manifold. This paper addresses the following abstract problem: given a compact 2D surface bounded by simple closed curves and lying in an orientable 2D manifold (a sphere, a torus, etc.) and given two points in the subspace, suggest a systematic way of defining the connectivity graph in the subspace, based on its topological properties. The use of space topology results in powerful, from the robotics standpoint, provable algorithms capable of on-line motion planning in an environment with unknown obstacles of arbitrary shapes. This makes the method distinct from other techniques, which require complete information, algebraic representation of space geometry, and off-line computation.     

Adaptive techniques for Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation with magnetostriction

In this paper we propose a time–space adaptive method for micromagnetic problems with magnetostriction. The considered model consists of coupled Maxwell's, Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert (LLG) and elastodynamic equations. The time discretization of Maxwell's equations and the elastodynamic equation is done by backward Euler method, the space discretization is based on Whitney edge elements and linear finite elements, respectively. The fully discrete LLG equation reduces to an ordinary differential equation, which is solved by an explicit method, that conserves the norm of the magnetization.     

On the one- and one-half-dimensional relativistic Vlasov-Fokker-Planck-Maxwell system

In this paper, we study the relativistic Vlasov-Fokker-Planck-Maxwell system in one space variable and two momentum variables. This non-linear system of equations consists of a transport equation for the phase space distribution function combined with Maxwell's equations for the electric and magnetic fields. It is important in modelling distribution of charged particles in the kinetic theory of plasma. We prove the existence of a classical solution when the initial density decays fast enough with respect to the momentum variables. The solution which shares this same decay condition along with its first derivatives in the momentum variables is unique.     

Recursive Methods in Modeling and Control of Modular Robotic Systems

This paper addresses the dynamical modeling and control of reconfigurable modular robots. The modular actuators (brushless DC motors with Harmonic Drive gears) for the robots under consideration are connected by rigid links. This way the robot can be assembled in different configurations by rearranging these components. For dynamical modeling the Projection Equation in Subsystem representation is used, taking advantage of its modular structure. Due to the lack of position sensors at the gearbox output shaft, deflections caused by the elasticities in the gears can not be compensated by the PD motor joint controller. Therefore, a correction of the motor trajectory is needed, which can be calculated as part of a flatness based feed-forward control using the exact model of the robot. With the recursive approach proposed in this paper the concept of reconfigurability is retained. For validation a redundant articulated robot arm with seven joints is regarded and results are presented. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A Numerical Verification Method for a System of FitzHugh-Nagumo Type

We propose a numerical method to enclose a solution of the FitzHugh-Nagumo equation with Neumann boundary conditions. We construct, on a computer, a set which satisfies the hypothesis of Schauder's fixed point theorem for a compact map in a certain Sobolev space, which, therefore contains a solution. Several verified results are presented.     

Approximate momentum conservation for spatial semidiscretizations of semilinear wave equations

Summary. We prove that a standard second order finite difference uniform space discretization of the semilinear wave equation with periodic boundary conditions, analytic nonlinearity, and analytic initial data conserves momentum up to an error which is exponentially small in the stepsize. Our estimates are valid for as long as the trajectories of the full semilinear wave equation remain real analytic. The method of proof is that of backward error analysis, whereby we construct a modified equation which is itself Lagrangian and translation invariant, and therefore also conserves momentum. This modified equation interpolates the semidiscrete system for all time, and we prove that it remains exponentially close to the trigonometric interpolation of the semidiscrete system. These properties directly imply approximate momentum conservation for the semidiscrete system. We also consider discretizations that are not variational as well as discretizations on non-uniform grids. Through numerical example as well as arguments from geometric mechanics and perturbation theory we show that such methods generically do not approximately preserve momentum.Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 65M20, 58J70, 70H33     

Formulas that Represent Cauchy Problem Solution for Momentum and Position Schrödinger Equation

In the paper we derive two formulas representing solutions of Cauchy problem for two Schrödinger equations: one-dimensional momentum space equation with polynomial potential, and multidimensional position space equation with locally square integrable potential. The first equation is a constant coefficients particular case of an evolution equation with derivatives of arbitrary high order and variable coefficients that do not change over time, this general equation is solved in the paper. We construct a family of translation operators in the space of square integrable functions and then use methods of functional analysis based on Chernoff product formula to prove that this family approximates the solution-giving semigroup. This leads us to some formulas that express the solution for Cauchy problem in terms of initial condition and coefficients of the equations studied.

     

Perspectives on Constructive and Functional Optimizing of a Serial Robot with Four Degrees of Freedom Destined for Special Applications

This paper deals with aspects on the dynamic modulation of the robots mechanical structure, using Lagrangian formalism, choosing the adequate DC servomotors, translation modules constituting the TTRT robot, the constructive solution and modelling the three translation subassemblies of the studied robot, with the intention that, in the end, based on a dynamic-organologic algorithm, a functional optimization of the robot be brought out within a workcell destined for special applications, so that the energetic consumption be as low as possible. This paper also presents the organological calculi and solutions for the efficient design of modules specific to mechanical structures of industrial serial-modular robots. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)