Mechanical Engineering - Theses
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ItemHigh-Performance Visual Closed-Loop Robot Control( 1994)This thesis addresses the use of monocular eye-in-hand machine vision to control the position of a robot manipulator for dynamically challenging tasks. Such tasks are defined as those where the robot motion required approaches or exceeds the performance limits stated by the manufacturer. Computer vision systems have been used for robot control for over two decades now, but have rarely been used for high-performance visual closed-loop control. This has largely been due to technological limitations in image processing, but since the mid 1980sadvances have made it feasible to apply computer vision techniques at a sufficiently high rate to guide a robot or close a feedback control loop. Visual servoing is the use of computer vision for closed-loop control of a robot manipulator, and has the potential to solve a number of problems that currently limit the potential of robots in industry and advanced applications. This thesis introduces a distinction between visual kinematic and visual dynamic control. The former is well addressed in the literature and is concerned with how the manipulator should move in response to perceived visual features. The latter is concerned with dynamic effects due to the manipulator and machine vision sensor which limit performance and must be explicitly addressed in order to achieve high-performance control. This is the principle focus of the thesis. In order to achieve high-performance it is necessary to have accurate models of the system to be controlled (the robot) and the sensor (the camera and vision system).Despite the long history of research in these areas individually, and combined in visual servoing, it is apparent that many issues have not been addressed in sufficient depth, and that much of the relevant information is spread through a very diverse literature. Another contribution of this thesis is to draw together this disparate information and present it in a systematic and consistent manner. This thesis also has a strong theme of experimentation. Experiments are used to develop realistic models which are used for controller synthesis, and these controllers are then verified experimentally.
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ItemRobot hand-arm co-operated motion planning( 1997)Research and development leading to the realisation of a fully autonomous and robust multi-fingered hand has been going on for three decades. Yet none can be found in an industrial application. This is largely because we do not fully understand the fundamental mechanics of multi-finger grasping. This thesis is a study of the mechanics of multi-finger grasping, with particular attention being paid to applying the analysis to experimental co-operative motion tasks between a hand-arm system and grasped object. Fine manipulation with multi-fingered robot hands is critically influenced by the capacity to achieve stable grasps. By exploring the fundamental mechanics involved, a method for establishing the stability of spatial four finger-contact grasps is obtained. This work examines both frictionless and frictional grasps in two and three dimensions and develops the stability requirements for grasping. The conditions for a stable grasp are expressed as simple equations relating the line coordinates of (i) transitory sliding actuator and (ii) the normal to the tangent plane at every contact location. This is achieved by using the principle of virtual work and a branch of statics known as astatics. After specifying a grasp in terms of its contact locations and forces the object can be grasped. However, in general the configuration of the hand-arm combination will not be unique, as such a manipulator system has more than six degrees of freedom and is said to be super-abundant. The choice of appropriate shares taken by the arm and hand in delivering the manipulation task needs to be resolved. This can be done making use of a kinematic performance measure based on aligning the grip triangle with the hand line of symmetry and maximising the available manipulation range. The hand-arm combination can then be driven to this desired grasp enabling the manipulator to carry out the specified task effectively. A Salisbury hand and PUMA 760 robot arm are used to demonstrate these co-operative motion tasks. All the experimental results are presented along with a detailed description of the implementation of a hierarchical robot controller system which incorporates force control of the PUMA 760.