This paper deals with the development and application of control algorithms for series elastic relief robots for rescue operations in harsh environment like disasters or battlefield. The joint controller applied in this paper has a cascade structure combining inner loop for torque control and outer loop for position control. The torque loop contains feedforward and feedback controller and disturbance observer for independent, decentralized joint control. The effect of the elastic component and motor dynamics are treated as the nonlinear disturbance and compensated with the disturbance observer of torque controller. For the collision detection, Band Designed Disturbance Observer is configured to recognize/respond to external disturbance robustly in the continuously changing environment. The controller is applied to a 7-dof series elastic manipulator to evaluate the torque tracking and collision detection/response performance.

Using an inverse of the geometric Jacobian matrix is one of the most popular ways to control robot manipulators, because the Jacobian matrix contains the relationship between joint space velocities and operational space velocities. However, the control algorithm based on Jacobian matrix has algorithmic singularities: The robot manipulator becomes unstable when the Jacobian matrix loses rank. To solve this problem, various methods such as damped and filtered inverse have been proposed, but comparative studies to evaluate the performance of these algorithms are insufficient. Thus, this paper deals with a comparative analysis of six representative singularity avoidance algorithms: Damped Pseudo Inverse, Error Damped Pseudo Inverse, Scaled Jacobian Transpose, Selectively Damped Inverse, Filtered Inverse, and Task Transition Method. Especially, these algorithms are verified through computer simulations with a virtual model of a humanoid robot, THORMANG, in order to evaluate tracking error, computational time, and multiple task performance. With the experimental results, this paper contains a deep discussion about the effectiveness and limitations of each algorithm.

Machining error makes the uncertainty of dimensional accuracy of the kinematic structure of a parallel robot system, which makes the uncertainty of kinematic accuracy of the end-effector of the parallel robot system. In this paper, the tendency of trajectory tracking error caused by the tolerance of design parameters of the parallel robot is analyzed. For this purpose, all the position errors are analyzed as the manipulator is moved on the target trajectory. X, Y, Z components of the trajectory errors are analyzed respectively, as well as resultant errors, which give the designer of the manipulator the intuitive and deep understanding on the effects of each design parameter to the trajectory tracking errors caused by the uncertainty of dimensional accuracy. The research results shows which design parameters are critically sensitive to the trajectory tracking error and the tendency of the trajectory tracking error caused by them.

A robot manipulator handling a heavy weight requires high-capacity motors and speed reducers, which increases the cost of a robot and the risk of injury when a human worker is in collaboration with a robot. To cope with this problem, we propose a collaborative manipulator equipped with a counterbalance mechanism which compensates mechanically for a gravitational torque due to the robot mass. The prototype of the manipulator was designed on the basis of a four-bar linkage structure which contains active and passive pitch joints. Experimental performance evaluation shows that the proposed robot works effectively as a collaborative robot.

Dual arm manipulators have been developed for the entertainment purpose such as humanoid type or the industrial application such as automatic assembly. Nowadays, there are some issues for applying the dual arm robot system into the various fields. Especially, robots can substitute human and perform the dangerous activity such as search and rescue in the battle field or disaster. In the paper, the dual arm manipulator which can be adapted to the rescue robot with the mobile platform was developed. The kinematic design was proposed for the rescue activity and the required specification was determined through the kinematic analysis and the dynamic analysis in the various conditions. The proposed dual arm manipulator was manufactured based on the vibration analysis result and its performance was proved by the experiment.

A modular manipulator in serial-chain structure usually consists of a series of modularized revolute joint and link modules. The geometric shapes of these modules affect the number of possible configurations of modular manipulator after assembly. Therefore, it is important to design the geometry of the joint and link modules that allow various configurations of the manipulators with minimal set of modules. In this paper, a new 1-DoF(degree of freedom) joint module and simple link modules are designed based on a methodology of joint configurations using a series of Rotational(type-R) and Twist(type-T) joints. Two of the joint modules can be directly connected so that two types of 2-DoFs joints could be assembled without a link module between them. The proposed geometries of joint and link modules expand the possible configurations of assembled modular manipulators compared to existing ones. Modular manipulator system of this research can be a cornerstone of user-centered markets with various solution but low-cost, compared to conventional manipulators of fixed-configurations determined by the provider.

This paper presents a column-climbing robot with a mechanical manipulator, which can spirally go up and down a column using wheels. The developed robot can do useful works using the manipulator at the top of a column, e.g., electric pole while communicating wirelessly with an operator panel. It is driven using a battery without any power cables, and the average duration of power is at least one hour. The robot has a function to detect a work object using an optical sensor installed at the bottom of the manipulator. The spirally column-climbing robot developed is demonstrated by experimental works and also by showing it at an exhibition.

The paper presents a momentum-based regressor by using Hamiltonian dynamics representation for robotic manipulator. It has an advantage in that the proposed regressor does not require the acceleration measurement for the identification of dynamic parameters. Also, the identification algorithm is newly suggested by solving a minimization problem with constraint. The developed algorithm is easy to implement in real-time. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed momentum-based regressor and identification method is shown through numerical simulations.

This paper proposes a performance index for the multiple shape object handling of dual arm manipulator to determine whether a robot is good or not. When the dual‐arm manipulator grasps a fixed object and is posed, the dual‐arm manipulator should procure a space to freely control the manipulator. As a performance evaluation parameter, each joint torque from current sensor signal is utilized. From the current information, torque and energy for each joint are estimated. In this paper an performance index for an unstructured object is defined by an energy‐cost function, and stability analysis for each motion is derived by the maximum force to the object. The maximum force to the object is computed by the inertia of object and acceleration information of end‐effector. The acceleration data are derived by the double derivation of each encoder signal. Manipulability measure which implies how efficiently the dual –arm manipulator can move with the grasped object, can be represented by the intersection of the two manipulability ellipsoids for the left and right arms. Effectiveness of the proposed algorithm has been verified through the practical simulations and real experiments.

A mobile manipulator is a system with a robotic manipulator mounted on top of a mobile base. It has both indoor and outdoor applications for transporting or transferring materials. When a user gives commands, they are usually at high levels such as “move the object to the table,” or “tidy the room.” By intelligently decomposing these complex commands into several subtasks, the mobile manipulator can perform the tasks with a greater efficiency. One of the crucial subtasks for these commands is the pick‐and‐place task. For the mobile manipulator, selection of a good base position and orientation is essential to accomplishing this task. This paper presents an algorithm that determines one of the position and orientation of a mobile manipulator in order to complete the pickand‐ place task without human intervention. Its effectiveness are shown for a mobile manipulator with 9 degrees‐of‐freedom in simulations

Dynamic simulator can be a helpful tool for understanding underwater robotic system's dynamics. However, due to difficulties in modeling dynamics of vehicle/manipulator and interaction between them, dynamic simulation is not easy. This is true even when fluid dynamics are not considered during the simulation. In this paper, two schemes are introduced for dynamic simulation of underwater robotic systems. One is principle of dynamical balance, which is an easy and powerful tool for formulating dynamic equations of composite systems such as underwater vehicle- manipulator system. In the dynamic modeling, this principle gives us the closed-form of dynamic equations on matrix Lie group. The other is geometric integration algorithm, called 4-th order explicit Munthe-Kaas method. By this method, the derived differential equations can be integrated preserving geometric structure. Adopting these two schemes, dynamic simulation of underwater vehicle- manipulator system can be conducted more easily and more reliably.

In this paper, a robotic system which consists of a precision manipulator and a micro gripper for a micro system assembly is presented. By the experiment, we proved that the developed the system gives acceptable performance when minute operations. Developed the micro-nano robot is actuated by newly proposed modular revolute and prismatic actuators. As an end-effector of this system, micro gripper is designed and fabricated with MEMS technology and the displacement of jaw is up to 142.8 micro meter. We think that new robot system will be appropriate for micro system assembly tasks and life science application

In this paper, applications of neural networks to vibration control of flexible single link robot manipulator are ocnsidered. The architecture of neural networks is a hidden layer, which is comprised of self-recurrent one. Tow neural networks are utilized in a control system ; one as an identifier is called neuro identifier and the othe ra s a controller is called neuro controller. The neural networks can be used to approximate any continuous function to any desired degree of accuracy and the weights are updated by dynamic error-backpropagation algorithm(DEA). To guarantee concegence and to get faster learning, an approach that uses adaptive learning rates is developed by introducing a Lyapunov function. When a flexible manipulator is ratated by a motor through the fixed end, transverse vibration may occur. The motor torque should be controlle dinsuch as way, that the motor is rotated by a specified angle. while simulataneously stabilizing vibration of the flexible manipulators so that it is arrested as soon as possible at the end of rotation. Accurate vibration control of lightweight manipulator during the large body motions, as well as the flexural vibrations. Therefore, dynamic models for a flexible single link manipulator is derived, and LQR controller and nerual networks controller are composed. The effectiveness of the proposed nerual networks control system is confirmed by experiments.