Este trabalho apresenta uma comparação entre as estratégias de controle por torque calculado e controle repetitivo aplicadas a manipuladores robóticos. O objetivo no uso desses controladores é para que o manipulador siga referência de trajetória periódica no espaço das juntas. O desenvolvimento e implementação dos controladores são focados no manipulador WAM (Whole Arm Manipulator) da Barrett Technology®Inc. Neste trabalho, também são apresentadas uma formulação do modelo não linear do manipulador e as sínteses dos controladores por torque calculado e repetitivo aplicados ao modelo do manipulador linearizado por realimentação. O controlador por torque calculado é apresentado e sintetizado na sua forma clássica. Para o controlador repetitivo, a síntese parte do princípio do modelo interno com a adição de uma estrutura repetitiva e uma realimentação proporcional e derivativa do erro de seguimento de referência O projeto dos ganhos do controlador repetitivo é feito através de um problema de otimização convexa com restrições na forma de inequações matriciais lineares (ou no inglês: Linear Matrix Inequalities - LMI). A formulação do problema de otimização parte da teoria de estabilidade segundo Lyapunov com um funcional Lyapunov-Krasoviskii, adição de um custo quadrático, para ajuste de desempenho, e de um critério de desempenho transitório dado pela taxa de decaimento exponencial da norma dos estados. É apresentada a comparação entre as estratégias de controle e a validação do controlador repetitivo proposto aplicado ao caso com linearização perfeita e ao caso com o modelo não linear do manipulador. No primeiro caso, é feita a simulação do modelo linear do manipulador com adição de um torque de atrito na junta. No segundo caso, é utilizado o sistema ROS (Robot Operating System) com o programa Gazebo simulando o manipulador WAM considerando erros de linearização, isto é, incertezas paramétricas. / This work presents a comparison between the strategies of computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to robotic manipulators. The main objective in use these controllers with the manipulator is to tracking periodic trajectory in joint space. The development and implementation of controllers are focused on the Whole Arm Manipulator (WAM) of the Barrett Technology®Inc. Also featured are a non-linear model formulation of the manipulator and the synthesis of controllers for computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to the manipulator model linearized by state feedback. The computed-torque controller is presented in its classic form. For the repetitive controller, the synthesis is based on the internal model principle with the addition of a repetitive structure and a proportional-derivative reference tracking error feedback. The design of the repetitive controller gains is done through a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities (LMI) constraints. The formulation of the optimization problem is based on the Lyapunov stability theory using a Lyapunov-Krasoviskii functional, addition of a quadratic cost for performance adjustment and a transient performance criteria given by the exponential decay rate of the states norm. A comparison between the control strategies and the validation of the repetitive controller applied to the case with perfect linearization and the case with the non-linear model of the manipulator are presented. In the first case, is made simulations of the linear model of the manipulator in MATLAB program, with the addition of a disturbance modeling the friction torque at the joint. In the second case, is used the Robot Operating System (ROS) with Gazebo program simulating the WAM nonlinear model. In this case, a possible mismatch between the model used for the feedback linearization and the real system is taken into account.

Le sujet de recherche est dans la continuité des travaux réalisés au cours de mon M2R sur la programmation par démonstration appliqué à la cobotique en milieu industriel. Ce sujet est à la croisée de plusieurs domaines (interaction Humain-Robot, planification automatique, apprentissage artificiel). Il s'agit maintenant d'aller au delà de ces premiers résultats obtenus au cours de mon M2R et de trouver un cadre générique pour la programmation de « cobots » (robots collaboratifs) en milieu industriel. L'approche cobotique consiste à ce qu'un opérateur humain, en tant qu'expert métier directement impliqué dans la réalisation des tâches en ligne, apprenne au robot à effectuer de nouvelles tâches et à utiliser le robot comme assistant « agile ». Dans ce contexte la thèse propose un mode d'apprentissage de type « end-user programming », c'est-à-dire simple et ne nécessitant pas d'être expert en robotique pour programmer le robot industriel Baxter. / The increasing presence of robots in industries has not gone unnoticed.Cobots (collaborative robots) are revolutionising industries by allowing robots to work in close collaboration with humans.Large industrial players have incorporated them into their production lines, but smaller companies hesitate due to high initial costs and the lack of programming expertise.In this thesis we introduce a framework that combines two disciplines, Programming by Demonstration and Automated Planning, to allow users without programming knowledge to program a robot.The user constructs the robot's knowledge base by teaching it new actions by demonstration, and associates their semantic meaning to enable the robot to reason about them.The robot adopts a goal-oriented behaviour by using automated planning techniques, where users teach action models expressed in a symbolic planning language.In this thesis we present preliminary work on user experiments using a Baxter Research Robot to evaluate our approach.We conducted qualitative user experiments to evaluate the user's understanding of the symbolic planning language and the usability of the framework's programming process.We showed that users with little to no programming experience can adopt the symbolic planning language, and use the framework.We further present our work on a Programming by Demonstration system used for organisation tasks.The system includes a goal inference model to accelerate the programming process by predicting the user's intended product configuration.

Successful development of mechatronic systems requires a combination of targeted hardware and software design. The compact rescue robot (CRR), a quadruped pneumatically-actuated walking robot that seeks to use the benefits garnered from pneumatic power, is a prime example of such a system. This thesis discusses the development and testing of a simulation that will aid in further design and development of the CRR by enabling users to examine the impacts of pneumatic actuation on a walking robot. However, development of an entirely new dynamic simulation specific to the system is not practical. Instead, the simulation combines a MATLAB/Simulink actuator simulation with a readily available C++ dynamics library. This multi-platform approach results in additional incurred challenges due to the transfer of data between the platforms. As a result, the system developed here is designed in the fashion that provides the best balance of realistic behavior, model integrity, and practicality. An analytically derived actuator model is developed using classical fluid circuit modeling together with nonlinear area and pressure curves to model the valve and a Stribeck-Tanh model to characterize the effects of friction on the cylinder. The valve model is designed in Simulink and validated on a single degree-of-freedom test rig. This actuator model is then interfaced with SrLib, a dynamics library that computes dynamics of the robot and interactions with the environment, and validated through comparisons with a CRR prototype. Conclusions are focused on the final composition of the simulation, its performance and limitations, and the benefits it offers to the system as a whole.

The aim of this thesis is to create a flexible multi-purpose modular all terrain robot platform, which has the potential to be used in commercial applications as well as in education and research. In developing this robot platform, it is aimed to use readily available commercial products as much as possible in order to keep the cost of the product low, increase maintainability, and benefit from the improvements made to these components in time. The modularity is attained by designing a two wheeled base module which is autonomous on its own. This base module is composed of two wheels where, the motors located inside these wheels. It is shown that the proposed base module facilitates the configuration of various robots to suit the needs of diverse applications. Detailed design and manufacturing of one of various possible configurations is presented. Performance tests are conducted on this robot configuration and effectiveness of the proposed modular approach is justified.

Even with the advance of autonomous robotics and automation, many automated tasks still require human intervention or guidance to mediate uncertainties in the environment or to execute the complexities of a task that autonomous robots are not yet equipped to handle. As such, robot controllers are needed that utilize the strengths of both autonomous agents, adept at handling lower level control tasks, and humans, superior at handling higher-level cognitive tasks. To address this need, we develop a control theoretic framework that seeks to incorporate user commands such that user intention is preserved while an automated task is carried out by the controller. This is a novel approach in that system theoretic tools allow for analytic guarantees of feasibility and convergence to goal states which naturally lead to varying levels of autonomy. We develop a model predictive controller that takes human input, infers human intent, then applies a control that minimizes deviations from the intended human control while ensuring that the lower-level automated task is being completed. This control framework is then evaluated in a human operator study involving a shared control task with human guidance of a mobile robot for navigation. These theoretical and experimental results lay the foundation for applying this control method for human-robot cooperative control to actual human-robot tasks. Specifically, the control is applied to a Urban Search and Rescue robot task where the shared control of a quadruped rescue robot is needed to ensure static stability during human-guided leg placements in uneven terrain. This control framework is also extended to a multiple user and multiple agent system where the human operators control multiple agents such that the agents maintain a formation while allowing the human operators to manipulate the shape of the formation. User studies are also conducted to evaluate the control in multiple operator scenarios.

The emergence of cloud computing has transformed the potential of robotics by enabling multi-robotic teams to fulfil complex tasks in the cloud. This paradigm is known as “cloud robotics” and relieves robots from hardware and software limitations, as large amounts of available resources and parallel computing capabilities are available in the cloud. The introduction of cloud-enabled robots alleviates the need for computationally intensive robots to be built, as many, if not all, of the CPU-intensive tasks can be offloaded into the cloud, resulting in multi-robots that require much less power, energy consumption and on-board processing units. While the benefits of cloud robotics are clearly evident and have resulted in an increase in interest among the scientific community, one of the biggest challenges of cloud robotics is the inherent communication challenges brought about by disconnections between the multi-robotic system and the cloud. The communication delays brought about by the cloud disconnection results in robots not being able to receive and transmit data to the physical cloud. The unavailability of these robotic services in certain instances could prove fatal in a heterogeneous environment that requires multi-robotic teams to assist with the saving of human lives. This niche area is relatively unexplored in the literature. This work serves to assist with the challenge of disconnection in cloud robotics by proposing a survivable cloud multi-robotics (SCMR) framework for heterogeneous environments. The SCMR framework leverages the combination of a virtual ad hoc network formed by the robot-to-robot communication and a physical cloud infrastructure formed by the robot-to-cloud communications. The Quality of Service (QoS) on the SCMR framework is tested and validated by determining the optimal energy utilization and Time of Response (ToR) on drivability analysis with and without cloud connection. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework is feasible for current multi-robotic applications and shows the survivability aspect of the framework in instances of cloud disconnection. / School of Computing / M.Sc. (Computer Science)

Este trabalho apresenta uma comparação entre as estratégias de controle por torque calculado e controle repetitivo aplicadas a manipuladores robóticos. O objetivo no uso desses controladores é para que o manipulador siga referência de trajetória periódica no espaço das juntas. O desenvolvimento e implementação dos controladores são focados no manipulador WAM (Whole Arm Manipulator) da Barrett Technology®Inc. Neste trabalho, também são apresentadas uma formulação do modelo não linear do manipulador e as sínteses dos controladores por torque calculado e repetitivo aplicados ao modelo do manipulador linearizado por realimentação. O controlador por torque calculado é apresentado e sintetizado na sua forma clássica. Para o controlador repetitivo, a síntese parte do princípio do modelo interno com a adição de uma estrutura repetitiva e uma realimentação proporcional e derivativa do erro de seguimento de referência O projeto dos ganhos do controlador repetitivo é feito através de um problema de otimização convexa com restrições na forma de inequações matriciais lineares (ou no inglês: Linear Matrix Inequalities - LMI). A formulação do problema de otimização parte da teoria de estabilidade segundo Lyapunov com um funcional Lyapunov-Krasoviskii, adição de um custo quadrático, para ajuste de desempenho, e de um critério de desempenho transitório dado pela taxa de decaimento exponencial da norma dos estados. É apresentada a comparação entre as estratégias de controle e a validação do controlador repetitivo proposto aplicado ao caso com linearização perfeita e ao caso com o modelo não linear do manipulador. No primeiro caso, é feita a simulação do modelo linear do manipulador com adição de um torque de atrito na junta. No segundo caso, é utilizado o sistema ROS (Robot Operating System) com o programa Gazebo simulando o manipulador WAM considerando erros de linearização, isto é, incertezas paramétricas. / This work presents a comparison between the strategies of computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to robotic manipulators. The main objective in use these controllers with the manipulator is to tracking periodic trajectory in joint space. The development and implementation of controllers are focused on the Whole Arm Manipulator (WAM) of the Barrett Technology®Inc. Also featured are a non-linear model formulation of the manipulator and the synthesis of controllers for computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to the manipulator model linearized by state feedback. The computed-torque controller is presented in its classic form. For the repetitive controller, the synthesis is based on the internal model principle with the addition of a repetitive structure and a proportional-derivative reference tracking error feedback. The design of the repetitive controller gains is done through a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities (LMI) constraints. The formulation of the optimization problem is based on the Lyapunov stability theory using a Lyapunov-Krasoviskii functional, addition of a quadratic cost for performance adjustment and a transient performance criteria given by the exponential decay rate of the states norm. A comparison between the control strategies and the validation of the repetitive controller applied to the case with perfect linearization and the case with the non-linear model of the manipulator are presented. In the first case, is made simulations of the linear model of the manipulator in MATLAB program, with the addition of a disturbance modeling the friction torque at the joint. In the second case, is used the Robot Operating System (ROS) with Gazebo program simulating the WAM nonlinear model. In this case, a possible mismatch between the model used for the feedback linearization and the real system is taken into account.

Este trabalho apresenta uma comparação entre as estratégias de controle por torque calculado e controle repetitivo aplicadas a manipuladores robóticos. O objetivo no uso desses controladores é para que o manipulador siga referência de trajetória periódica no espaço das juntas. O desenvolvimento e implementação dos controladores são focados no manipulador WAM (Whole Arm Manipulator) da Barrett Technology®Inc. Neste trabalho, também são apresentadas uma formulação do modelo não linear do manipulador e as sínteses dos controladores por torque calculado e repetitivo aplicados ao modelo do manipulador linearizado por realimentação. O controlador por torque calculado é apresentado e sintetizado na sua forma clássica. Para o controlador repetitivo, a síntese parte do princípio do modelo interno com a adição de uma estrutura repetitiva e uma realimentação proporcional e derivativa do erro de seguimento de referência O projeto dos ganhos do controlador repetitivo é feito através de um problema de otimização convexa com restrições na forma de inequações matriciais lineares (ou no inglês: Linear Matrix Inequalities - LMI). A formulação do problema de otimização parte da teoria de estabilidade segundo Lyapunov com um funcional Lyapunov-Krasoviskii, adição de um custo quadrático, para ajuste de desempenho, e de um critério de desempenho transitório dado pela taxa de decaimento exponencial da norma dos estados. É apresentada a comparação entre as estratégias de controle e a validação do controlador repetitivo proposto aplicado ao caso com linearização perfeita e ao caso com o modelo não linear do manipulador. No primeiro caso, é feita a simulação do modelo linear do manipulador com adição de um torque de atrito na junta. No segundo caso, é utilizado o sistema ROS (Robot Operating System) com o programa Gazebo simulando o manipulador WAM considerando erros de linearização, isto é, incertezas paramétricas. / This work presents a comparison between the strategies of computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to robotic manipulators. The main objective in use these controllers with the manipulator is to tracking periodic trajectory in joint space. The development and implementation of controllers are focused on the Whole Arm Manipulator (WAM) of the Barrett Technology®Inc. Also featured are a non-linear model formulation of the manipulator and the synthesis of controllers for computed-torque control and repetitive control applied to the manipulator model linearized by state feedback. The computed-torque controller is presented in its classic form. For the repetitive controller, the synthesis is based on the internal model principle with the addition of a repetitive structure and a proportional-derivative reference tracking error feedback. The design of the repetitive controller gains is done through a convex optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities (LMI) constraints. The formulation of the optimization problem is based on the Lyapunov stability theory using a Lyapunov-Krasoviskii functional, addition of a quadratic cost for performance adjustment and a transient performance criteria given by the exponential decay rate of the states norm. A comparison between the control strategies and the validation of the repetitive controller applied to the case with perfect linearization and the case with the non-linear model of the manipulator are presented. In the first case, is made simulations of the linear model of the manipulator in MATLAB program, with the addition of a disturbance modeling the friction torque at the joint. In the second case, is used the Robot Operating System (ROS) with Gazebo program simulating the WAM nonlinear model. In this case, a possible mismatch between the model used for the feedback linearization and the real system is taken into account.

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This thesis deals with construction of a cheap robotic manipulator, which should be used for exhibitions and educational purposes. This project is a teamwork of two students. A robotic arm with four degrees of freedom was developed. Control and power electronics were installed for whole robot. The software’s aim is to develop a software that can control the robot by visual feedback, obtained from image processing of an image from 3D camera. Lastly, a graphic user interface for robot movement control is presented.