Modular Cable-Driven Robotic Arms for Intrinsically Safe Manipulation

A Cable-Driven Robotic Arm (CDRA) possesses a number of advantages over the conventional articulated robotic arms, such as lightweight mechanical structure, high payload, fault tolerance, and most importantly, safe manipulation in the human environment. As such, a mobile manipulator that consists of a mobile base and a CDRA can be a promising assistive robot for the aging or disabled people to perform necessary tasks in their daily life. For such applications, a CDRA is a dexterous manipulator that consists of a number of cable-driven joint modules. In this chapter, a modular design concept is employed in order to simplify design, analysis, and control of CDRA to a manageable level. In particular, a 2-DOF cable-driven joint module is proposed as the basic building block of a CDRA. The critical design analysis issues pertaining to the kinematics analysis, tension analysis, and workspace-based design optimization of the 2-DOF cable-driven joint module are discussed. As a modular CDRA can be constructed into various configurations, a configuration-independent kinematic modeling approach based on the Product-of-Exponentials (POE) formula is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed design analysis algorithms are demonstrated through simulation examples.

Self-Calibration of Eye-to-Hand and Workspace for Mobile Service Robot

The geometrical relationships among robot arm, camera, and workspace are important to carry out visual servo tasks. For industrial robots, the relationships are usually fixed and well calibrated by experienced operators. However, for service robots, particularly in mobile applications, the relationships might be changed. For example, when a mobile robot attempts to use the visual information from environmental cameras to perform grasping, it is necessary to know the relationships before taking actions. Moreover, the calibration should be done automatically. This chapter proposes a self-calibration method using a laser distance sensor mounted on the robot arm. The advantage of the method, as compared with pattern-based one, is that the workspace coordinate is also obtained at the same time using the projected laser spot. Further, it is not necessary for the robot arm to enter the view scope of the camera for calibration. This increases the safety when the workspace is unknown initially.

Safer and Faster Humanitarian Demining with Robots

The need to clean almost 1 million landmines on the Turkish border poses a great challenge to the Turkish military, both as a safety and a feasibility issue. In order to achieve this task, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) robot has been designed and a prototype has been manufactured. The robot has the capability of working in task space. The uniqueness of this research is that the design criteria and the prototype procedure is explained in detail. After the testing of the prototype, the research results are concluded—which functions the future EOD robots should have and how these functions can improve the performance and ease of use of this type of military robots. Autonomy, use of an advisory system, and automatic camera manipulation can improve the future EOD robots dramatically.

Task Analysis and Motion Generation for Service Robots

This chapter is to summarise research in the direction of domestic service robots particularly with reference to robotic implementation of ironing process. The chapter presents the garment handling and ironing from a procedural point of view and discusses the devices for handling. The handling is categorised into several steps with common handling operations, resulting in categorisation of gripping and handling devices with potential applications to domestic automation. Based on this, ironing paths are explored with an orientation-position representation. This is followed by the introduction of development of folding and unfolding and by the region segregation based garment folding. This involves path analysis, folding algorithms, and mechanisms review for ironing. The paths produced from the ironing process are presented with mathematical models to be possibly implemented in robotic automation and their orientation is presented, dependent on the regions of garment. The orientation analysis is useful in finding the similarity in motion to determine the effective and efficient way of ironing a garment with orientation region diagrams and workspace presentation.

Service Robots for Agriculture

In general, service robots are described with different characteristics for different tasks. In this chapter service robots are analyzed as machines in the agricultural field. The mechanisation in agriculture is discussed and service robots are described for particular tasks. In particular, the harvesting and treatment of high commercial value products is discussed for robotized applications. A significant case study is described and discussed for a robotized system with the aim to harvest and separate the Saffron flower spice.

Dual Robot Control for Part Handling Services with Human Interaction

The chapter also discusses a new method of using robots to interact with humans (natural interaction) to provide assistance services. Using depth sensors, the robots are able to detect the human operator and to avoid collisions. Collision avoidance is implemented using a depth sensor, which monitors the activity outside and inside the multi-robot system workspace, using skeleton tracking, which allows the robot to detect collisions and stop the motion at the right time.

Mobile Worm-Like Robots for Pipe Inspection

Worm-Like Robots (WLR) have a simple construction, and they do not need any special actuators such as wheels, caterpillars, or legs. Therefore, mobile vibration robots can move not only in space, but also in dense materials, which are not available for wheeled or leg-equipped robots. Worm-like motion allows moving on rough surfaces and inside liquid environments. Mobile devices, which can move without special movers interacting with the environment directly by their frame, possess a number of advantages, as compared to wheeled, crawling, and walking systems. This advantage allows creating miniature microrobots capable for moving in narrow channels, slits, vessels, and environments, inaccessible for other mobile objects. In this chapter, design of robots with worm-like locomotion is discussed, as well as an analysis of Worm-Like Robot (WLR) movement.

An Integrated Approach for Teaching Robotics based on the Development of Low-Cost Parallel Robots

From the academia viewpoint, the process of qualifying engineering students demands they acquire a deep understanding of basic sciences and technological aspects. On the other hand, it is quite a challenge to keep them motivated throughout their graduation period. Taking into account these issues, an integrated approach for teaching can provide good results. Basically, the way that such integration might be accomplished requires a single project per period. In addition, the disciplines taken by the students in a specific period should provide them the necessary background to conclude that project. Focusing on teaching robotics, this chapter describes the authors’ experience with mechatronics engineering students in the 7th-period of their graduation.

Lagrangian Dynamics of Manipulators

Service robots can be thought of as having two types of motion: (a) locomotion of the entire robot, which can be either legged or wheeled, and (b) motion of the manipulator limbs, e.g., object manipulation by the “hands” etc. While the first type is very specialised, in particular in the case of legged motion, the second is fairly generic and can be discussed in detail without making a very heavy demand on the mathematical background of the reader. With that in mind, in the following, the author considers the dynamics of two types of systems, which are known as serial or open-loop, and parallel or closed-loop manipulators. The examples of these would be the hands of a humanoid robot, when considered in isolation, and when clasped together or holding an object with both hands, respectively. The examples considered here would be planar in order to keep them simple; however, the formulation presented would be general, so that the reader can, very easily, use it to model and simulate spatial manipulators.

Design and Operation of Two Service Robot Arms

The aim of this chapter is to propose original applications and development in the field of robotics. Also the focus is made on the design and operation of two service robot arms. These robots have been developed in the ROBIOSS team of the PPRIME Institute (UPR 3346 CNRS) from Poitiers University, in the context of two different collaborations with industrial partners. The design procedures for these two innovative applications are detailed: industrial and entertainment. The first application concerns a wide printing application; an international patent (Gazeau, Lallemand, Ramirez Torres, & Zeghloul, 2007) was deposited for this device in 2007. The second application was installed in 2006 in the Futuroscope Park: the “artist robot” draws portraits of the visitors every day by using a camera and a pen attached to end-effector.