Control An Mnidirectional Mobile Robot: Keigo Watanabe
Control An Mnidirectional Mobile Robot: Keigo Watanabe
Keigo Watanabe
by using a driving wheel with steering, which 2.5 Orthogonal wheel mechanism
needs a preparatory motion for arranging the Pin and Killough [7] developed a holonomic and
wheel directions in a translational or rotational omnidirectional mobile robot with an orthogonal
motion. Nevertheless, this mobile robot has some wheel concept that provides normal traction in a
merits that the mechanism is simple, a specialized given direction while being free-wheeling in the
tire is not used, and there is no coupling between other perpendicular direction. Two possibly as-
the actuator for driving the wheel and the actu- sembly configurations of the wheels, labeled lon-
ator for steering [2]. gitudinal and lateral assemblies were discussed
and a prototype platform was also constructed
2.2 Universal wheel mechanism by using the former assembly, in which its cor-
responding control system was implemented in
In the development of holonomic and omni- a teleoperated mode or in a user-provided tra-
directional mobile robot, a universal wheel (or jectory mode. A holonomic and omnidirectional
Swedish wheel) concept [3] is well known for us. mobile robot was also constructed in Tang et al.
The wheel mechanism, which involves a large [8] by applying three lateral assemblies; however
wheel with many small rollers mounted on its its construction is slightly more complicated than
rim, can easily realize a holonomic and omnidirec- the longitudinal one, because it needs a gear or
tional motion, if such wheels more than three are transmission belt to synchronize two rounded-tire
mounted on a platform and allocated at different wheels.
directions. It is known that this type of wheels
suffers from the successive shocks caused when 2.6 Crawler mechanism
individual rollers make contact with the ground. West and Asada [9] and Nishikawa et al. [lo]
studied a holonomic and omnidirectional mobile
2.3 Omni-alpha mechanism robot called the Omnitrack by utilizing two rows
of full spheres as rolling units, in which the ball
Omni-alpha mechanism was developed to im- wheels or spherical tires are arranged in two con-
prove the remedy of the universal wheel mecha- veyer belts which produce forward and rotational
nism. The original omni-alpha wheel is a combi- motion of the platform. Two controlled rods in
nation of two plates, one of which has three bar- each track contact the top of the balls and, by
reled free-rollers. The three free-rollers of each rotating around an axis parallel to the track, pro-
plate are allocated with 120 [deg] so that the ex- vide sideways motion of the platform. Although
ternal form is consistent with the curvature of the mechanism provides holonomic and omnidi-
the wheel. Combining of two plates with 60 [deg] rectional motion, the rotational degree of freedom
shift, the outer envelope of six free rollers con- of the platform is extremely difficult to control be-
structs the external form of the wheel. Thus, cause, like all tracked or skid-steer vehicles, signif-
this wheel can make successive contact with the icant sideways slippage of part of the track must
ground, keeping a constant distance from a con- occur during turns. Note also that it may lead to
tact point. Asama et al. [4] developed an om- significant odometer and position tracking prob-
nidirectional mobile robot with three degree-of- lems, because some of the ball wheels can tem-
freedom decoupling drive mechanism and with a porarily lose contact with the ground on uneven
modified omni-alpha wheel in which one plate of terrain.
the wheel consists with four barreled free-rollers. In order to improve this shortcoming, Hirose
and Amano [ll]developed a special-type crawler
2.4 Ball wheel mechanism called the Vuton crawler, whose crawler has some
cylindrical free rollers. As a result, a holonomic
A nonholonomic mobile robot with two ball and omnidirectional mobile robot with four such
wheels was developed by Machida et al. [5]. This crawlers has no sideways slippage and can bear
nonholonomic vehicle has been shown to have an a relatively high payload. Hirano et al. [12] also
omnidirectionality with controlled rotational and developed a composite crawler with free rollers,
translational motion capabilities by using a par- so that a holonomic and omnidirectional mobile
ticular control system based on the concept of robot with four such crawlers can run on offload.
a chained form. However, note that this type However, note that this vehicle can not bear a
of robots can not achieve any three degree-of- high payload, because it has relatively narrower
freedom velocities at any time, because of its non- contact space with the ground, compared to the
holonomic property. On the other hand, West vehicle with Vuton crawler.
and Asada studied a holonomic omnidirectional
mobile robot using three ball wheels to achieve 2.7 Offset steered wheel mechanism
a full mobility and improved dead reckoning per- As suggested in above, the steered wheel mech-
formance [6]. anism of Nakano et al. [l],[2] requires a prepara-
52
1998 Second International Conference on Knowledge-BasedIntelligent Hecmnic Systems, 21-Z April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, L.C. Jain and R.KJain
z
tory motion for arranging the wheel directions
in a translational or rotational motion, because &o"edd
z
53
1998 Second Intemational Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Electronic Systems, 21-23 April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, LC.Jain and R.K.Jain
0,
I Assembly 3
)XW
On the other hand,. the geometrical relation-
ships among variables 4, x,, y,, and wi, i.e., the
inverse kinematics are given by
54
1998 Second International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Electronic Systems, 21-UApril 1998.Adelaide, Australia. Editors, L.C.Jain and R.KJain
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
B(x)=
blPl b l P 2 2blCOS4
blP3 blp4 2blsin4
b2 b2 62
1
0 0 0 1 0 0
C= 0 0 0 0 1 0 where x; ,y; and $* are given.by adding PI-servo
0 0 1 0 0 0 or PD-servo to x w d , &,d and 4 d such that
= 1 - a; = 3IW/(3IW+ 2Mr2)
U2
(29)
y i ) $ and the azimuth of the robot in the absolute
+
coordinate system be 4 = 6' 4. Here, 6' denotes Here, K., is the proportional gain, K.i is the in-
tegral gain, K., is the derivative gain, and each
the angle between X,-coordinate and f,, i.e.,
the azimuth of the robot in the moving coordinate error is defined by
system. Then, it is found that
e;. = x w d - xw (30)
xw = v c o s + (21) ey = Ywd - Yw (31)
yw = VsinII, (22) e4 =4 d -4 (32)
4 = arctan - YW
(23) where xwd,iw, and 4 d denote the references for
XW
where note that a counterclockwise rotation de- x w , y w and 4, respectively. It should be noted
notes the positive direction for the rotational mo- that the solutions u i , i = 1,2,3 exit for all t , be-
tion of the robot. cause the input distribution factors b l and b2 are
It should be noted that Xw-and Y,-directional always non-zero constants.
motions in (19) are coupled, because the equation For a control result using this resolved acceler-
of motions is derived in the absolute coordinate ation control system, see [17].
system. However, since the rotational angle of
6. PID Control Method
the robot can be assured as 4 = - 8 even if the+
azimuth of the robot is changed arbitrarily, the The state and output equations (19) and (20)
mobile robot can realize a translational motion are described in the absolute coordinate system.
without changing the pose. It should be noted, however, that the control in-
put U is the quantity in the moving coordinate
5. Resolved Acceleration Control system. Therefore, the control input in the abso-
Since the dynamic equation is finally consid- lute coordinate system must be transformed into
ered in the absolute coordinate system, solving the control input for each assembly, i.e., signal
equation (19) with respect to ui, i = 1,2,3 gives expressed in the moving coordinate system, if the
the following resolved acceleration control: control input is designed in the absolute coordi-
nate system. Here, defining the control input in
U1 = Pl(.;: - aliw + a2diw) the moving coordinate as mu and one in the ab-
6bi solute coordinate as w u ,then the transformation
p3(Yw
"* - UlYw - a24.w) for each input can be derived from the kinematics
+ 6bi as follows
"U = J T W a (33)
(24) where J is the Jacobian matrix defined by
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1998 Second International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Electronic Systems, 21-U April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, L.C. lain and R.K.Jain
6.1 An adaptive PI controller for yw, where K,jc,ayl and a,j2 are some posi-
In this section, we show an adaptive PI con- tive constants. This control strategy is a kind
troller. Let uj.,u,j and u4 be the control in- of PI type controller with adaptive gain tuning,
puts using "i,"$ and 4, respectively and denote where P and I gains are adjusted automatically
W 21 = [uz,u,j,u4]. according to the error signals. By using this con-
In the conventional research, it is known 1181 trol strategy, when the error signal becomes large
that PD control is effective to control the rota- because of the plant parameter changing, the PI
tional angle, i.e., gains are tuned adaptively and look forward to
converging the error signal. The output response
u4 = K+peb K+ueb + (34) can be improved by setting the greater and
K,jc,but it requires a large initial input. On the
and P control is effective for controlling each ve- other hands, large aj.1, a i l in the P gain and
locit y, 0 5 2 , "$2 in the I gain may contribute to the im-
uj. = Kkpej., u,j = K,jpejr provement of rise time and offset removing with-
But the concrete method does not exist for the out causing a large initial input.
selection of the 'P' gains, KhP and Kjlp. Thus, a For the rotational angle control, we also use the
trial and error procedure is required until a de- conventional PD control as shown in (34).
sired performance will be obtained. Moreover, if
the system parameters are changed due to mount- 7. Fuzzy Model Method
ing a weight on the robot or changing of the phys- For the fuzzy servo, a rough construction pro-
ical parameters, then the design parameters must cedure of fuzzy models is as follows:
be selected again. 1. Substitute a representative angle 4 into
On the other hands, a simple output feedback Eq.(19) and construct a linear model.
strategy 2. Discretize the linear model.
3. Construct the augmented system.
u(t)= K(t)e(t), k(t)= e 2 ( t ) 4. Design an optimal regulator for the aug-
is known [19],where U is the scalar input, e is the mented system and determine the feedback
scalar error, and K is a scalar time-varying gain. gain matrix by solving the associated Ric-
This control strategy is a kind of P type con- cati equation using any numerical approach.
troller with an adaptive gain tuning, where P gain Here, we prepare four kind of models within the
is adjusted automatically according to the error range of -27r 5 4 5 27r. The value of 4 at each
signal. This control strategy is very attractive, model rule is given by
but a steady state error may remain, if we only
Model rule 1 :4 = 0 or 27r or - 27r
use the P-type controller. In a constant output
feedback problem, this can be easily overcome by Model rule 2 :4 = 7r/2 or - 3 ~ / 2
introducing an integral term to the control law. Model rule 3 :4 = 7r or - 7r
In the paper of [20], the following adaptive PI Model rule 4 :q5 = 37r/2 or - n/2
controller for iw was adopted,
7.1 Linear fuzzy models
Since the representative angle is assumed to be
constant in each model rule, the system matrix of
linear model is same for all of model rules such as
with
+
Kj.l(t) = K i p @ ) akiIX'j.i(t)
Kj.z(t)= &52Kj.i(t)
~ ~ j .= t )( t ) , &i(t) = e:(t)
~ e( %
where KkC,a i l , and aj.2 are some positive con-
stants. Similarly, The distribution matrix B,i is provided by
r 1
+ I' K,j2(7)e,j(~)dr
1
(36)
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1998Second Intemational Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Electronic System, 21-23 April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, L.C. Jain and R.KJain
- -
r 1 73 -73 0
71 71 -72
74 74 74
r4 = 77 -77 0
75 75 -76
- 78 78 78 -
@=
0 0 0.0475
0.684 0 0
03x3 O 0.684 0 where
0 0 0.903
-71
-73
72
0
- @e= [ -c @
03x3
06x3
2I3x3
13x3
06x3
-13x3
03x3 1
74 74
[
-75 76
-77 0 rei = 03x3
78 78 - 0"3]
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1998 Second International Conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent ElectronicSystem, 21-23 April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, LC.Jain and R.KJain
to obtain Pi 2 0 as a strong solution [22] by ap- the manipulated quantity can be consequently ex-
plying an iterative approach. The strong solution pressed [23] by
Pi is obtained as a steady-state solution of the 4
following iterative relation:
u(k)= ui(k)
Pili + 11 = Qi + @TPib]cPe- cPTPiIj]rei(Ri i=l
r 4 i r 4 1
+r: h]re)-'r: Ij]ae (44)
with initial condition of p i [ O ] = 0. Anyway, if Pi r 4 1
is calculated, then the optimal feedback law can
be realized as (53)
-
13x3 normal distribution with its mean and covari-
03x3
ance PO,i.e., z(0) N ( Z 0 ,Po), and be indepen-
dent of { w ( k ) , v ( k ) }In
. addition, let the data
Dividing the both sides of Eq.(45) by f(2-l) and A
using Eq.(47) in it, we have set of y(k) be described by Yk = {y(O), ...,y(k)}
and similarly the data set of u(k)be denoted by
Ui(k)= -&z(k)-Ki<(k-l)-L&(k-2) (49) A
Uk = {u(o),...,u(k)}.
where it is assumed that €(-2) = €(-1) = 0. 8.1 Multiple-model optimal servo system
The membership function is of a Gaussian type Under the assumption that in equations (54)
with the center value w,, the reciprocal value of and (55) the distribution matrix r and the ini-
standard deviation Wd,and the input variable x, tial state z(0) are uncertain, consider a multiple
whose confidence p is given by model adaptive control which treats with the can-
didate models as the hypotheses. Let the hypoth-
p = exp {ln(0.5)(z- W,)~W;} (50) esis Hi be described by
Since there exist two or three multiple labels in Hi : ~ ( +k1) = h ( k ) + I'+(k) + w(k) (56)
one model rule, the confidence of i-th model rule
in the antecedent part is assumed to be given by +
y(k) = C z ( k ) w(k),i = 1,...,M (57)
where M is the number of candidate models
pi = m y { p i j )
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1998 Second International Conference on Knowledge-Based IntelligentElectronic System, 21-23 April 1998, Adelaide, Australia. Editors, L.C. Jain and R.K.Jain
M
fact, as can be seen from equation (69), Si are
- Hizi(k - l)~(HiIk) (58)
all equal for i = 1, ...,M ) , as in the conventional
i= 1
stochastic fuzzy control [25]. Then, the multiple
From the Kalman filter theory, the elemental model adaptive control in steady-state is reduced
n to
state estimate &(k) = E[~(k)lHi,Yk-l,Uk-l]
can be obtained as follows: M M
U ( k )= - C F i & i ( k ) P ( i l k-
) CHiri(k)p(ilk)
i= 1 i=l
(70)
where the a posteriori probability p ( i l k ) for the
ith membership function (or ith control rule) can
be written by
9. Conclusions
In this paper, we have reviewed several special-
Moreover, the a posteriori probability for the hy- ized wheel or mobile mechanisms for construct-
pothesis Hi,p ( H i l k ) , is calculated by ing mainly a holonomic and omnidirectional mo-
bile robot. Then, we concentrated our atten-
tion to a particular omnidirectional mobile robot,
whose platform was composed of the three lateral
orthogonal-wheel assemblies. After introducing
Pi (Y(k)) the dynamic model for such a mobile robot, we
1
=(~T)-”~Is~ I-lexp[-Sllv(k) - ~ ~ ( k ) l l ~ discussed
~~] on the four control approaches to de-
velop a feedback control system.
(68)
in which pi(y(k)) denotes the probability density
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