Nonlinear Control Techniques for Robot Manipulators - Nonlinear Control of Mechatronic Systems with Applications in Robotics

This book describes the design and implementation of control strategies for the following topics: i) Whole-arm-grasping control for redundant robot manipulators ii) Neural network grasping controller for continuum robots and iii) Coordination control for haptic and teleoperator systems. A kinematic control for whole-arm grasping of objects using redundant robot manipulators which facilitates the encoding of both the end-effector position as well as body self-motion positioning information as a desired trajectory signal for the manipulator joints is presented along with experimental results. An approach to whole-arm grasping control for hyper-redundant robots or continuum robots is also illustrated. The grasping controller developed in two stages; high level path planning for the grasping objective and a low level joint controller using a neural network feedforward component to compensate for dynamic uncertainties is presented along with some experimental results. Additionally two controllers developed for nonlinear haptic and teleoperator systems are presented. The controllers ensure the tracking and coordination between the systems. Experimental results are included.