Robot Trajectory Control for Avoiding Singular Configurations
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Solution Overview
Problem
Robotics control systems face challenges with manual programming being tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone, and are often incompatible across different workcells, leading to issues with singular configurations that introduce uncertainty, delays, and safety risks due to the need for high joint velocities to handle these configurations.
Innovation Solution
A system is developed to precompute singular configurations and automatically avoid them at runtime by determining control rules prior to execution, ensuring the robot's trajectory avoids singular configurations without introducing significant delays, thus improving speed and safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If online adaptation processes are used to dynamically compute desired location and position, then robot can react to changing situations, but singular configurations are encountered that severely limit control and introduce delays
Solution Approach 1:
The system precomputes singular configurations and generates control rules before robot execution. By determining all singular configurations in advance and creating corresponding control rules, the robot can avoid these configurations during operation without performing computationally expensive calculations in real-time, thus maintaining adaptability while avoiding time delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies preliminary anti-action by pre-identifying problematic singular configurations and creating control rules that actively prevent the robot from entering these states. The control rules are designed to counteract potential singularity issues before they occur during robot operation, ensuring smooth control without delays.
2Speed
If high joint velocities are used to handle singular configurations, then robot can maintain movement, but end effector moves slowly in Cartesian space and safety risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system precomputes singular configurations and generates control rules before robot execution. By determining all singular configurations in advance and creating corresponding control rules, the robot can avoid these configurations during operation without performing computationally expensive calculations in real-time, thus maintaining adaptability while avoiding time delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The control rules incorporate feedback mechanisms that continuously monitor the robot's configuration and adjust joint velocities to prevent entering singular states. When the robot approaches a singular configuration, the control system provides feedback to modify the trajectory, ensuring safe operation without requiring excessive joint velocities.
3Manufacturing precision
If manual programming is used to dictate robotic movements, then precise task execution is achieved, but programming is tedious, time-consuming, and error prone
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables robots to automatically handle singular configuration avoidance through precomputed control rules. Instead of requiring manual programming of every movement detail, the robot autonomously applies control rules to navigate around singular configurations, reducing programming complexity and time while maintaining precise task execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms the complex problem of singularity avoidance by changing parameters from dynamic real-time computation to static precomputed control rules. This parameter transformation simplifies the control process, making it less prone to errors and faster to implement while maintaining precise robot control.
4Reliability
If computationally expensive singularity computation is performed at runtime, then accurate singularity avoidance is achieved, but significant delays are introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system precomputes singular configurations and generates control rules before robot execution. By determining all singular configurations in advance and creating corresponding control rules, the robot can avoid these configurations during operation without performing computationally expensive calculations in real-time, thus maintaining adaptability while avoiding time delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a simplified copy of the singularity avoidance problem in the form of precomputed control rules. Instead of performing complex computations during robot operation, the system uses pre-generated control rules that replicate the singularity avoidance logic, significantly reducing runtime computational requirements while maintaining accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for avoiding singular configurations of a robot. A singular configuration of the robot is obtained. A location of an end effector of the robot when the robot is in the singular configuration is determined. For each of a plurality of voxels in a workcell, a distance from the voxel to the location of the end effector when the robot is in the singular configuration is computed. A negative potential gradient of the computed distance is computed. Control rules are generated, wherein the control rules, when followed by the robot, offset the trajectory of the robot according to the negative potential gradient.