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Article
Publication date: 28 May 2019

Xiaofeng Liu, Bangzhao Zhou, Boyang Xiao and Guoping Cai

The purpose of this paper is to present a method to obtain the inertia parameter of a captured unknown space target.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a method to obtain the inertia parameter of a captured unknown space target.

Design/methodology/approach

An inertia parameter identification method is proposed in the post-capture scenario in this paper. This method is to resolve parameter identification with two steps: coarse estimation and precise estimation. In the coarse estimation step, all the robot arms are fixed and inertia tensor of the combined system is first calculated by the angular momentum conservation equation of the system. Then, inertia parameters of the unknown target are estimated using the least square method. Second, in the precise estimation step, the robot arms are controlled to move and then inertia parameters are once again estimated by optimization method. In the process of optimization, the coarse estimation results are used as an initial value.

Findings

Numerical simulation results prove that the method presented in this paper is effective for identifying the inertia parameter of a captured unknown target.

Practical implications

The presented method can also be applied to identify the inertia parameter of space robot.

Originality/value

In the classic momentum-based identification method, the linear momentum and angular momentum of system, both considered to be conserved, are used to identify the parameter of system. If the elliptical orbit in space is considered, the conservation of linear momentum is wrong. In this paper, an identification based on the conservation of angular momentum and dynamics is presented. Compared with the classic momentum-based method, this method can get a more accurate identification result.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 91 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 May 2020

Zhiyu Ni, Yewei Zhang, Xinhui Shen, Shunan Wu and Zhigang Wu

When a manipulator captures an unknown space object, inertia parameters of endpoint payload should be timely obtained to handle possible unexpected parameter variations and…

Abstract

Purpose

When a manipulator captures an unknown space object, inertia parameters of endpoint payload should be timely obtained to handle possible unexpected parameter variations and monitor the system’s operating conditions. Therefore, this study aims to present an identification method for estimating the inertia parameter of the payload carried by a flexible two-link space manipulator.

Design/methodology/approach

The original nonlinear dynamics model of the manipulator is linearized at a selected working point. Subsequently, the system modal frequencies with and without payload are determined using the subspace identification algorithm, and the difference of these frequencies is computed. Furthermore, by adjusting the structural configuration of the manipulator, multiple sets of frequency differences are obtained. Therefore, the inertia parameters of the payload, i.e. the mass and the moment of inertia, can be derived from the frequency differences by solving a least-squares problem.

Findings

The proposed method can effectively estimate the payload parameters and has satisfactory identification accuracy.

Practical implications

The approach’s implementation provides a practical reference for determining inertia parameters of an unknown space target in the capture process.

Originality/value

The study proposes a novel method for identifying the inertia parameters of the payload of a flexible two-link space manipulator using the estimated system frequencies.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 92 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 April 2020

J. Guillermo Lopez-Lara, Mauro Eduardo Maya, Alejandro González, Antonio Cardenas and Liliana Felix

The purpose of this paper is to present a new vision-based control method, which enables delta-type parallel robots to track and manipulate objects moving in arbitrary…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a new vision-based control method, which enables delta-type parallel robots to track and manipulate objects moving in arbitrary trajectories. This constitutes an enhanced variant of the linear camera model-camera space manipulation (LCM-CSM).

Design/methodology/approach

After obtaining the LCM-CSM view parameters, a moving target’s position and its velocity are estimated in camera space using Kalman filter. The robot is then commanded to reach the target. The proposed control strategy has been experimentally validated using a PARALLIX LKF-2040, an academic delta-type parallel platform and seven different target trajectories for which the positioning errors were recorded.

Findings

For objects that moved manually along a sawtooth, zigzag or increasing spiral trajectory with changing velocities, a maximum positioning error of 4.31 mm was found, whereas objects that moved on a conveyor belt at constant velocity ranging from 7 to 12 cm/s, average errors between 2.2-2.75 mm were obtained. For static objects, an average error of 1.48 mm was found. Without vision-based control, the experimental platform used has a static positioning accuracy of 3.17 mm.

Practical implications

The LCM-CSM method has a low computational cost and does not require calibration or computation of Jacobians. The new variant of LCM-CSM takes advantage of aforementioned characteristics and applies them to vision-based control of parallel robots interacting with moving objects.

Originality/value

A new variant of the LCM-CSM method, traditionally used only for static positioning of a robot’s end-effector, was applied to parallel robots enabling the manipulation of objects moving along unknown trajectories.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 47 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 January 2022

Barry Lee Reynolds and Chen Ding

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of word-related factors (i.e. frequency, range, dispersion and cognateness) on first-language English (L1E) readers' (n

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of word-related factors (i.e. frequency, range, dispersion and cognateness) on first-language English (L1E) readers' (n = 20) and second-language English (L2E) readers' (n = 20) incidental acquisition of vocabulary through the reading of an authentic novel.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, a 58,686 token (word) English language novel containing Slovos, that is, words from Nadsat, a futuristic, foreignized teen talk invented by Burgess. Upon finishing the novel, the participants took two unexpected vocabulary tests, one for meaning recognition and the other for meaning recall.

Findings

The results of this study indicate that word-related factors significantly correlate with the word meaning recall test scores of both groups. However, the regression models of meaning recall for the two groups showed that dispersion was the most robust predictor, which implies that the participants recalled more word meanings when the novel had a more even distribution of the unknown target words. The meaning recognition test scores showed cognates were a significant predictor for the L1E readers but not for L2E readers.

Originality/value

This study marks the first attempt in the field to investigate the relative contribution of frequency, range and dispersion – a closely bound set of word-related factors – to both L1E and L2E readers' incidental acquisition of vocabulary through reading an authentic novel. Considering the important role of dispersion, the current study suggests that developers of graded readers and children's literature should more evenly distribute unknown target words in their books. Doing so will better facilitate both L1E and L2E readers' acquisition of those words. The study also addresses a fallacy of methodology regarding incidental vocabulary acquisition by examining the effect of the cognateness of the foreignized words embedded in A Clockwork Orange. The L1E readers' sensitivity to cognates implies that cognate-word awareness-raising activities are necessary to learning a foreign language, especially if that language has many cognates in common with English, such as Spanish.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 June 2010

Tao Zhang, Yi Zhu and Jingyan Song

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the local minima issue encountered in motion planning by the artificial potential field (APF) method, investigate the currently existing…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the local minima issue encountered in motion planning by the artificial potential field (APF) method, investigate the currently existing approaches and analyze four types of previous methods. Based on the conclusions of analysis, this paper presents an improved wall‐following approach for real‐time application in mobile robots.

Design/methodology/approach

In the proposed method, new switching conditions among various behaviors are reasonably designed in order to guarantee the reliability and the generality of the method. In addition, path memory is incorporated in this method to enhance the robot's cognition capability to the environment. Therefore, the new method greatly weakens the blindness of decision making of robot and it is very helpful to select appropriate behaviors facing to the changeable situation. Comparing with the previous methods which are normally considering specific obstacles, the effectiveness of this proposed method for the environment with convex polygon‐shaped obstacles has been theoretically proved. The simulation and experimental results further demonstrate that the proposed method is adaptable for the environment with convex polygon‐shaped obstacles or non‐convex polygon‐shaped obstacles. It has more widely generality and adaptiveness than other existed methods in complicated unknown environment.

Findings

The proposed method can effectively realize real time motion planning with high reliability and generality. The cognition capability of mobile robot to the environment can be improved in order to adapt to the changeable situation. The proposed method can be suitable to more complex unknown environment. It is more applicable for actual environment comparing with other traditional APF methods.

Originality/value

This paper has widely investigated the currently existed approaches and analyzes deeply on four types of traditional APF methods adopted for real time motion planning in unknown environment with simulation works. Based on the conclusions of analysis, this paper presents an improved wall‐following approach. The proposed method can realize real time motion planning considering more complex environment with high reliability and generality. The simulation and experimental results further demonstrate that the proposed method is adaptable for the environment with convex polygon‐shaped obstacles or non‐convex polygon‐shaped obstacles. It has more widely generality and adaptiveness than other existed methods in complicated unknown environment.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 37 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 June 2021

Francisco Jesús Arjonilla García and Yuichi Kobayashi

This study aims to propose an offline exploratory method that consists of two stages: first, the authors focus on completing the kinematics model of the system by analyzing the…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to propose an offline exploratory method that consists of two stages: first, the authors focus on completing the kinematics model of the system by analyzing the Jacobians in the vicinity of the starting point and deducing a virtual input to effectively navigate the system along the non-holonomic constraint. Second, the authors explore the sensorimotor space in a predetermined pattern and obtain an approximate mapping from sensor space to chained form that facilitates controllability.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors tackle the controller acquisition problem of unknown sensorimotor model in non-holonomic driftless systems. This feature is interesting to simplify and speed up the process of setting up industrial mobile robots with feedback controllers.

Findings

The authors validate the approach for the test case of the unicycle by controlling the system with time-state control policy. The authors present simulated and experimental results that show the effectiveness of the proposed method, and a comparison with the proximal policy optimization algorithm.

Originality/value

This research indicates clearly that feedback control of non-holonomic systems with uncertain kinematics and unknown sensor configuration is possible.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 48 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 March 2011

Xiaolei Yu and Zhimin Zhao

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel method for integrating of chaotic exploration and thinning‐based topological mapping to deal with the “traverse targets and return”…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel method for integrating of chaotic exploration and thinning‐based topological mapping to deal with the “traverse targets and return” problem applied for robot navigation in unknown environments. This new strategy can guarantee the robot stronger ability of exploring unknown environments, as well as recording and selecting optimal trajectory to return.

Design/methodology/approach

The chaotic dynamic evolution of controlled multi‐scroll system is linked to the multi‐sensory perception and reactive behaviors of a mobile robot. The thinning‐based topological map (TTM), as the contextual layer of the cognitive system, is adopted to achieve the environmental recording in the process of robot exploration and navigation. Once the robot arrives at the terminal target via avoiding all the obstacles, the TTM has been built in real time. Based on the records in the topological map, a short and smooth point‐to‐point path is generated to achieve the exit from target and to move back to the starting point.

Findings

The simulation results confirmed that the proposed solution is suitable to resolve the robot's tasks of obstacle avoidance, target retrieving, and return, also has better performance than traditional strategies.

Originality/value

The presented novel method focuses integration of chaotic exploration and TTM self‐construction. The chaotic perception and control technique permits the robot to explore most of the environmental information within the smallest explored area. The introduced topological map, generated by applying a thinning algorithm, guarantees a short and smooth returning trajectory for the robot.

Details

COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0332-1649

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 March 2022

Toan Van Nguyen, Minh Hoang Do and Jaewon Jo

To follow and maintain an appropriate distance to the selected target person (STP), the mobile robot is required to have capabilities: the human detection and tracking and an…

Abstract

Purpose

To follow and maintain an appropriate distance to the selected target person (STP), the mobile robot is required to have capabilities: the human detection and tracking and an efficient following strategy with a smooth manner that does not appear threatening to the STP and surroundings. The efficient following strategy must integrate the STP position and the obstacle information to achieve smooth and safe human-following behaviors, especially in unknown environments where robot does not have understandings in advance. The purpose of this study is to propose a robust-adaptive-behavior strategy for mobile robots.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents a robust-adaptive-behavior strategy (RABS) based on the fuzzy inference mechanism to help the robot follow the STP effectively in various unknown environments with the real-time obstacle avoidance, both indoor and outdoor and on different robot platforms. In which, the traversability of robots’ unknown surrounding environments is analyzed by using the STP position and the obstacle information obtained from the two dimensional laser scan, whose purpose is to choose the highest-traversability-score direction (HTSD) and an adaptive-safe-following distance (ASFD). Then, the HTSD, the ASFD and the current velocity of the robot are considered as inputs of the fuzzy system to adjust its velocity smoothly.

Findings

The proposed RABS is verified by a set of experiments using a real big-heavy autonomous mobile robot (BH-AMR), with the dimension 0.8 × 1.2 (m), weight 150 (kg), full-load 500 (kg), aiding smart factories. The obtained results have shown that the proposed RABS equips the BH-AMR with the ability to follow the STP smoothly and safely even when the robot is moving at the maximum speed 1.5 (m/s).

Research limitations/implications

In this paper, the autonomous mobile robot considers all environments as unknown even when it is working in mapped environments. This limitation is presented clearly in the future works section.

Practical implications

This proposed method can be used to help the autonomous mobile robot support persons in factories, hospitals, restaurants, supermarkets or at the airports.

Originality/value

This paper presents a RABS, including three new features: a fuzzy-based solution to help human-following robots maintain an appropriate distance to the STP safely and smoothly with the maximum velocity 1.5 (m/s); the proposed fuzzy-based solution, an adaptive vector field histogram and a new approach for the STP tracking is combined to follow the STP and avoid the collision simultaneously in unknown indoor and outdoor environments; the proposed RABS is considered for BH-AMRs (with the dimension 0.8 × 1.2 (m), weight 150 (kg), full-load 500 (kg)) to serve real tasks in smart factories.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 49 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2011

Jiajun Gu and Qixin Cao

Two and one half‐dimensional (2.5D) grid maps are useful for navigation in outdoor environment or on non‐flat surface. However, little attention has been given to how to find an…

Abstract

Purpose

Two and one half‐dimensional (2.5D) grid maps are useful for navigation in outdoor environment or on non‐flat surface. However, little attention has been given to how to find an optimal path in a 2.5D grid map. The purpose of this paper is to develop a path‐planning method in a 2.5D grid map, which aims to provide an efficient solution to robot path planning no matter whether the robot is equipped with the prior knowledge of the environment.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2.5D grid representation is proposed to model non‐flat surface for mobile robots. According to the graph extracted from the 2.5D grid map, an improved searching approach derived from A* algorithm is presented for the shortest path planning. With reasonable assumption, the approach is improved for the path planning in unknown environment.

Findings

It is confirmed by experiments that the proposed planning approach provide a solution to the problem of optimal path planning in 2.5 grid maps. Furthermore, the experiment results demonstrate that our 2.5D D* method leads to more efficient dynamic path planning for navigation in unknown environment.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a path‐planning approach in a 2.5D grid map which is used to represent a non‐flat surface. The approach is capable of efficient navigation no matter whether the global environmental information is available at the beginning of exploration.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 38 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 September 2003

Stan Aungst, Russell R. Barton and David T. Wilson

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) proposes to take into account the “voice of the customer,” through a list of customer needs, which are (qualitatively) mapped to technical…

Abstract

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) proposes to take into account the “voice of the customer,” through a list of customer needs, which are (qualitatively) mapped to technical requirements in House One. But customers do not perceive products in this space, nor do they not make purchase decisions in this space. Marketing specialists use statistical models to map between a simpler space of customer perceptions and the long and detailed list of needs. For automobiles, for example, the main axes in perceptual space might be categories such as luxury, performance, sport, and utility. A product’s position on these few axes determines the detailed customer requirements consistent with the automobiles’ position such as interior volume, gauges and accessories, seating type, fuel economy, door height, horsepower, interior noise level, seating capacity, paint colors, trim, and so forth. Statistical models such as factor analysis and principal components analysis are used to describe the mapping between these spaces, which we call House Zero.

This paper focus on House One. Two important steps of the product development process using House One are: (1) setting technical targets; (2) identifying the inherent tradeoffs in a design including a position of merit. Utility functions are used to determine feature preferences for a product. Conjoint analysis is used to capture the product preference and potential market share. Linear interpolation and the slope point formula are used to determine other points of customer needs. This research draws from the formal mapping concepts developed by Nam Suh and the qualitative maps of quality function deployment, to present unified information and mapping paradigm for concurrent product/process design. This approach is the virtual integrated design method that is tested upon data from a business design problem.

Details

Evaluating Marketing Actions and Outcomes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-046-3

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