Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators, Modeling, Design, Control and Applications

Citation

Buckingham, R. (2006), "Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators, Modeling, Design, Control and Applications", Industrial Robot, Vol. 33 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2006.04933aae.001

Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators, Modeling, Design, Control and Applications

Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators, Modeling, Design, Control and Applications

Fei-Yue Wang & Yanqing GaoAugust 2003456 p.981-238-390-5University of Arizona, USAUS$94/£69www.worldscibooks.com/compsci/5290.html

Keywords: Robotics, Books

In September 2005, the European Robotics Platform (EUROP) will be launched with great fanfare. EUROP sets out a vision for robotics for the coming decades and argues for significant investment in EC Framework 7. It should come as no surprise that equivalent actions are either underway or being actively considered in the USA, Korea and Japan.

What is perhaps most encouraging about the EUROP document is that the authors have gone beyond the grand vision statements and claims for multi-billion dollar markets and have identified specific areas in which we, the robotics community, have to make significant progress.

It is recognized that one of the key technological challenges is in the area of manipulation and grasping. Quoting from the EUROP report: "Very flexible and dextrous arms with a payload/weight ratio of 1:1 or better will be required to enable safe operation in a service sector to assist people with clearing of a table, or assisting a person to get up from a sofa, or in human worker co-operation."

Robots have historically been massively engineered for maximum stiffness in order to enable rapid precise motion. This works for some production tasks but robots of the future will be compliant and flexible. They will almost certainly be sensor controlled and incorporate adaptive control strategies that will use the compliance in different ways. But, right now this is a very new field and we do not know how it will develop. This of course should be music to the ears of graduates considering further research topics or academics looking for the next new idea for the next funding application.

As the title indicates Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators deals directly with these issues – although it does not provide all the answers. It is written by experts, so, as a means to become acquainted with field and as a bibliographic source, this must be a good place to start.

But, Advanced Studies of Flexible Robotic Manipulators is not for the faint hearted. The mathematics is non-trivial from page 9. The cohort of leading academic authors assume that the reader will be well versed with robot kinematics, dynamics and control to at least first degree level.

Turning to the content of the book, control is definitely the main theme, with chapters (which are effectively extended papers) on non-linear control, energy-based control, force control and trajectory control. In support of the control content the authors do describe the practical work they have completed in this area looking at sensor based control and shape measurement. The book also describes a number of experimental rigs. This is perhaps the section that indicates the extent to which this is a new and developing field. The challenge over the coming years will be to see more hardware solutions implemented, both to test and evaluate the different control strategies and also to engage industry.

This book is a valuable contribution to the milieu. It is not a bedtime read, but flexible robotics is a dynamic field with some challenging problems to be solved.

Rob BuckinghamManaging Director, OCRobotics, OCRobotics manufactures (relatively slow moving!) flexible manipulators