Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Introduction
• Historical perspective
• The acclaimed Czech playwright Karel Capek (1890-1938) made the first use
of the word ‘robot’, from the Czech word for forced labor or serf.
• The use of the word Robot was introduced into his play R.U.R. (Rossum's
Universal Robots) which opened in Prague in January 1921. In R.U.R., Capek
poses a paradise, where the machines initially bring so many benefits but in
the end bring an equal amount of blight in the form of unemployment and
social unrest.
• Science fiction ‘-
• Asimov, among others glorified the term ‘robotics’, particularly in I, Robot, and
early films such as Metropolis (1927) paired robots with a dystopic society
• Formal definition (Robot Institute of America):
• "A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material,
parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for
the performance of a variety of tasks".

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Robots in everyday use and popular culture

• 100s of movies
• Chances are, something you
eat, wear, or was made by a
robot
‘-

http://www.robotuprising.com/

Roomba: $142M in sales for 2005

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Common applications

• Industrial
• Robotic assembly Picture of Roomba
• Commercial
• Household chores
• Military
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• Medical
• Robot-assisted surgery

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Common applications Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

• Planetary Exploration
• Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control
• Mars rover
• Undersea exploration

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JHUROV; Johns Hopkins

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Industrial robots
• High precision and repetitive tasks
– Pick and place, painting, etc
• Hazardous environments

‘-

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Representations

• For the majority of this class, we will consider robotic manipulators as open or closed
chains of links and joints
• Two types of joints: revolute (q) and prismatic (d)

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Definitions
• End-effector/Tool
• Device that is in direct contact with the environment. Usually very task-specific
• Configuration
• Complete specification of every point on a manipulator ‘-
• set of all possible configurations is the configuration space
• For rigid links, it is sufficient to specify the configuration space by the joint angles
• State space q = q1 ... qn 
T
q2
• Current configuration (joint positions q) and velocities
• Work space
• The reachable space the tool can achieve
- Reachable workspace
- Dextrous workspace

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: wrists

• Many manipulators will be a sequential chain of links and joints
forming the ‘arm’ with multiple DOFs concentrated at the ‘wrist’

‘-

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Example end-effector: Grippers

• Anthropomorphic or task-specific
– Force control v. position control

‘-

Utah MIT hand

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: elbow manipulator

• Anthropomorphic arm: ABB IRB1400
• Very similar to the lab arm (RRR)

‘-

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Workspace: elbow manipulator

‘-

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: Stanford arm (RRP)

• Spherical manipulator (workspace forms a set of concentric
spheres)

‘-

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: SCARA (RRP)

‘-

Adept Cobra Smart600 SCARA robot

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: cylindrical robot (RPP)

• workspace forms a cylinder

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Seiko RT3300 Robot

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Common configurations: Cartesian robot (PPP)

• Increased structural rigidity, higher precision
– Pick and place operations

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Workspace comparison
(a) spherical
(b) SCARA
(c) cylindrical
(d) Cartesian
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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Parallel manipulators
• some of the links will form a closed chain with ground
• Advantages:
– Motors can be proximal: less powerful, higher bandwidth, easier to control
• Disadvantages:
– Generally less motion, kinematics can be challenging

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6DOF Stewart platform ABB IRB6400 ABB IRB940 Tricept

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Simple example: control of a 2DOF planar manipulator

• Move from ‘home’ position and follow the path AB with a constant contact force F
all using visual feedback

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Coordinate frames & forward kinematics

• Three coordinate frames: 0 1 2
• Positions:
 x1  a1 cos(q1 )
 y  =  a sin(q )  2
 1  1 1 

 x2  a1 cos(q1 ) + a2 cos(q1 + q 2 )  x 

 y  =  a sin(q ) + a sin(q + q )    y  ‘-
 2  1 1 2 1 2   t
• Orientation of the tool frame:
0 1
1 0
xˆ 0 =  , yˆ 0 =  
0 1
cos(q1 + q 2 ) − sin(q1 + q 2 )
xˆ 2 =  ˆ =
 2  cos(q + q ) 
, y
 sin(q1 + q 2 )   1 2 

 xˆ  xˆ yˆ 2  xˆ 0  cos(q1 + q 2 ) − sin(q1 + q 2 )
R20 =  2 0  = 
 xˆ 2  yˆ 0 yˆ 2  yˆ 0   sin(q1 + q 2 ) cos(q1 + q 2 ) 
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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Inverse kinematics
• Find the joint angles for a desired tool position
xt2 + y t2 − a12 − a22
cos(q 2 ) =  D  sin(q 2 ) =  1 − D 2
2a1a2

−1 1 − D 2  q = tan−1 y  − tan−1 a2 sin(q 2 ) 
q 2 = tan     a + a cos(q ) 
 
1
 D   x  1 2 2 
‘-
• Two solutions!: elbow up and elbow down

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Path planning
• In general, move tool from position A to position B while avoiding
singularities and collisions
– This generates a path in the work space which can be used to solve
for joint angles as a function of time (usually polynomials)
– Many methods: e.g. potential fields

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• Can apply to mobile agents or a manipulator configuration

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Joint control
• Once a path is generated, we can create a desired tool path/velocity
– Use inverse kinematics and Jacobian to create desired joint trajectories

desired trajectory
error controller system dynamics

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measured trajectory (w/ sensor noise) actual trajectory

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Other control methods

• Force control or impedance control (or a hybrid of both)
• Requires force/torque sensor on the end-effector
• Visual servoing
‘-
• Using visual cues to attain local or global pose information
• Common controller architectures:
• PID
• Adaptive
• Repetitive
• Challenges:
• Underactuation
• Nonholonomy (mobile agents)
• nonlinearity

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
General multivariable control overview

joint
controllers motor
manipulator
dynamics dynamics

desired ‘- state
joint estimation
torques sensors

inverse estimated
kinematics, configuration
Jacobian desired
trajectory

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Sensors and actuators

• sensors
• Motor encoders (internal)
• Inertial Measurement Units Basic quantities for
• Vision (external) ‘-
both:
• Contact and force sensors • Bandwidth
• motors/actuators • Dynamic range
• Electromagnetic • sensitivity
• Pneumatic/hydraulic
• electroactive
- Electrostatic
- Piezoelectric

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Mobile Agents and SLAM

• For untethered and autonomous applications, the performance of

a robotic system (P), whether defined by capability or robustness,
can be related to an agent’s intelligence (I), mobility (M), and
multiplicity (N):

P  I  M  f (N ), ‘-
I  (0,1), M  (0,1), N  0,1,2,..., f : N → n  R +

MicroBat; UCLA
Whegs; CWRU RHex; Michigan

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Mobile Agents and SLAM

• Monte Carlo localization

‘-

• SLAM: ‘Simultaneous locomotion and Map-building’

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Computer Vision

• Simplest form: estimating the position and orientation of

yourself or object in your environment using visual cues
• Usually a statistical process
• Ex: finding lines using the Hough space

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• More complex: guessing what the object in your

environment are
• Biomimetic computer vision: how do animals accomplish
these tasks:
• Obstacle avoidance
- Optical flow?
• Object recognition
- Template matching?

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
MEMS and Microrobotics

• Difficult definition(s):
• Robotic systems with feature sizes < 1mm
• Robotic systems dominated by micro-scale physics
• MEMS: Micro ElectroMechanical Systems
• Modified IC processes to use ‘silicon as a mechanical
material’
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Fearing; Berkeley Donald; Dartmouth

Pister; Berkeley
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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Surgical robotics

• Minimally invasive surgery

• Minimize trauma to the patient
• Potentially increase surgeon’s
capabilities
• Force feedback necessary, tactile ‘-
feedback desirable

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering
Biomimetic Robots

• Using biological principles to reduce design space

‘-

BigDog; Boston Dynamics MFI; Harvard & Berkeley Ayers; Northeastern

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 Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering

Humanoid robots

• For robots to efficiently interact with humans, should they be

anthropomorphic?

‘-

QRIO Sony

Asimo; Honda

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