16-743: ROBOT CONTROL
(Spring 1997)

Lectures:

Time: Tuesday-Thursday 9:00AM - 10:20AM
Room: Smith Hall 101 (except 1/15 and 1/29: Smith Hall 232)

Homework Schedule

Course Schedule

Instructor:

Chris Paredis
paredis@cmu.edu
Hamburg Hall 2218, 8-8299
Office Hours: Friday 1:00-3:00PM

Teaching Assistant:

Stewart Moorehead
sjm@cs.cmu.edu
FRC 200, 8-7086
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:00-4:00PM

Goal of the Course:

The goals of the course are:

• to introduce fundamental methodologies for designing feedforward and feedback controllers for robot manipulators.
• to introduce methodologies for analyzing stability and performance of control algorithms.
• to provide the students with practical experience designing linear and non-linear controllers.

To obtain practical experience generating robot control algorithms, the students will implement several robot controllers using MATLAB. These controllers will be tested on simulated robots that have been modeled to include many real-world phenomena such as friction, sensor noise, and higher order dynamics.

Course Outline:

Even though many of the concepts introduced in this course apply to control problems in general, the main focus is on the control of robot manipulators. The course covers three main components: kinematic control of redundant manipulators, position control, and force control.

• kinematic control
• review of basic concepts in geometry, linear algebra, and kinematics of robots
• kinematic redundancy
• manipulability
• local redundancy control: resolved motion rate control and redundancy control with task priority
• global redundancy optimization
• position control
• review of manipulator dynamics, actuator dynamics, and their properties
• individual joint PID control
• digital control
• computed-torque (CT) methods -- inverse dynamics control
• LQ optimal outerloop control for CT controllers.
• robustness of CT controllers
• variable structure control -- sliding mode control
• adaptive control schemes (including stability and persistency of excitation)
• force control
• force and velocity constraints
• hybrid position/force control
• stiffness control and impedance control

Grading:

• Homework: 50%
• Midterm exam: 25%
• Final exam: 25%

Homework:

There is a large emphasis on problem sets. The problem sets will give the student important experience in implementing control algorihtms, choosing control parameters, and analyzing the stability and performance of the control algorithms. There will be a problem set approximately every other week, and all sets have equal weight in the total grade.

Homeworks are worth full credit when turned in at the beginning of the class on the due date; they are worth half credit after that.

Exams:

Two oral exams wil be given; one at the middle and one at the end of the semester. The midterm will cover all preceding material; the final will cover only post-midterm material.

Pre-requisites

• Basic knowledge of kinematics and dynamics of robot manipulators. That is, the first six chapters of "Introduction to Robotics: mechanics and control" by Craig.
• Basic knowledge of feedback control.

Reference Books:

• "Control of Robot Manipulators"
  Lewis, Abdallah, and Dawson
  Macmillan Publishing, 1993
• "Advanced Robotics: Redundancy and Optimization"
  Yoshihiko Nakamura
  Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1991