Introduction to Robotics

(A)

Yuan Li
School of Automation, BIT
2017.9
 Why robotics course?
• Robotics is a research field involving mathematics,
control science, sensing technology, mechanical
engineering, Electronic engineering, Computer
Science, Artificial intelligence and system engineering.

• Personal reason: most of my research is focused on

robotics and computer vision.
 Outline of Robotics
• Robotics Overview
• Spatial Descriptions and Transformations
• Forward Manipulator Kinematics
kinematics and dynamic
• Inverse Manipulator Kinematics
• Velocities and Static Force Jacobians
• Path and trajectory planning
Perception and planning
• Environment perception for robots
• Mobile robot and SLAM
• Vision based robot control
• Robotics simulation and analysis using Matlab toolbox Extension
and practice
• Experiment and practice on robot platform (at our lab)
• Vision sensing and vision control for welding robot system
 What is Robot?
• Wikipedia: A robot is a mechanical intelligent agent which can
perform wide range of physical tasks on its own, or with guidance.

• In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine

which is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots
can be autonomous (intelligent) or semi-autonomous
(programmable).
R2-D2
3PO
 History of robots
• Compass cart, Zhang Heng in Han dynasty, China, gave
a embryonic form robot.
• Android, by Mole, Canada, 1893, driven by steam
power to walk.
• Unimate, USA, 1962, the first robot, used for material
feeding;
• Versatran, USA, 1963，the first industrial robot;
• Robot with computer control, 1974
• Teach-and-play robot, 1982
• Intelligent robots: developed with vision, voice and
intelligence since 1990s.
 History of robots
• The first generation: teach-and-play robots.

• The second generation: robots with sensors

can percept environmental information.

• The third generation: intelligent robots can

learn, make decision and behave like humans.
Is this a robot?
 Ethical issues of robots
The three Laws of Robot: (by Asimov, 1950)
• 1. A robot may not injure a human being, or,
through inaction, allow a human being to come
to harm.
• 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by
human beings except where such orders would
conflict with the First Law.
• 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long
as such protection does not conflict with the First
or Second Law.
 Classification of robots
• Applications fields:
- Industrial Robots
- Service Robots
- Military Robots
- Exploring Robots
- Education Robots
Some applications
– Deburring
– Inspection
– Surgery
– Gluing
– Painting and spraying
– Machine servicing
– Material processing
– Assembly
– Palletizing/depalletizing
– Picking and packing
– Cutting
– Polishing
– Sorting
– Welding
Industrial Robots in China
 This course concerns industrial robots

ISO 8373 definition:

An automatically controlled,
reprogrammable,
multipurpose, manipulator
programmable in three or
more axes, which may be
either fixed in place or mobile
for use in industrial
automation applications.
Industrial
robots
 Service robots

Service robots as low volume specialists: floor cleaning, sewer inspection, entertainment

Robots as household appliances for large volume markets: Lawn-mower, Vacuum cleaner
and tennis ball collectors

Based on conventional robot arms: refueling, surgery, automated drink terminal

 More
service robots
 Service robot
Definition
• A robot which operates semi or fully autonomously to
perform services useful to the well being of humans and
equipment, excluding manufacturing operations.
Classification
• Servicing humans (personal safeguarding, entertainment
etc.)
• Servicing equipment (maintenance, repair, cleaning etc.)
• Other performing an autonomous function (surveillance,
transport, data acquisition, etc.) and/or service robots that
can not be classified in the above two groups.
 Robotics: A much bigger industry
• Robot Manipulators
– Industrial applications
– Service robot applications
• Service robots
– Cleaning robots
– Medical robots
– Transportation robots
– Artificial limbs
• Field robots
– Military applications
– Space exploration
• Entertainment robots
Ambitious plans on robot industry
• Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, AMP
• National Robotics Initiative, NRI

• Leading companies:
Google
i-ROBOT
American Robot
……
Ambitious plans on robot industry
• SPARC (The Partnership for Robotics in Europe)
• Industry 4.0 (Germany)

• Leading companies:
KUKA
GLOOS
FESTO
ABB
LEGO
NAO
……
Ambitious plans on robot industry
• Japan’s Robot Strategy

• Leading companies:
FANUC
Yaskawa Electric
KAWASAKI
Honda
……
Ambitious plans on robot industry
• Made in China 2025

• Leading companies:
新松机器人
哈工大机器人
大疆
优必选
……
 Classification of robots
• mechanism characters:
- Series link robots
- Parallel link robots
 Classification of robots
• Coordinate geometry:
- Cartesian coordinate robots
- Cylindrical coordinate robots
- Spherical coordinate robots
Classification of robots
 Classification of robots
• Intelligence level:
- Manual operation robots
- Fixed sequence robots
- Programmable robots
- Teaching playback robots
- Intelligent autonomous robot
 Classification of robots
• Drive technologies:
Pneumatics. Used in many simple pick and place arms, so
they are cheap, but difficult to control. Also used in
many modern robots to drive end effectors.

Hydraulics. Used on a large number of the early robots as it

was more rigid and controllable than pneumatics and it
could provide more power than the electric drives then
available. Tends to be fairly slow in operation. Due to the
high pressures involved leaks can be very messy.
 Classification of robots
• Drive technologies:
Electric
• Stepper Motors. These are used mainly for simple pick and
place mechanisms where cheapness is more important than
power or controllability.
• DC Servos. For the early electric robots the DC servo drive
was used extensively. It gave good power output with a high
degree of control of both speed and position.
• AC Servos. In recent years the AC servo has taken over from
the DC servo as the standard drive. These modern motors
give higher power output and are almost silent in operation.
As they have no brushes they are very reliable and require
almost no maintenance in operation.
 Classification of robots
• Drive technologies:
• SMA (Shape memory alloy)

• Piezoelectric Ceramics.

• EAP( Electro Active Polymers )

 Robotics is a multidisciplinary
research field
Mechanical Engineering
- Design of the mechanism. Under standing of the
kinematics and dynamic of the system
Electronic Engineering
- Design of the actuator and sensor systems.
Computer Science, Artificial intelligence
- Design of the logic, intelligence or adaptability,
networking and interface
System Engineering
- System analysis and integration of the overall
system. Signal conditioning and control.
 Research fields in robotics
Sensors and perception system
Novel sensors
Multi-sensing system, sensing fusion
Active vision and high speed vision
Sensing technology in worst working conditions
Voice understanding
Sensing system software
Virtual reality technology
 Research fields in robotics
Driving, modelling and control
super low inertial motors
Direct driving, AC driving and servo driving
Control theory
Control system
Online control and real time control
Vision control and voice, speech control
 Research fields in robotics
Automatic planning and scheduling
The environment model
Task planning and path planning
Coordinated manipulation and motion planning
Task negotiation and scheduling
Robot scheduling in manufacturing system
Non structural environment planning
 Research fields in robotics
Computer system
Control computer system for intelligent robots
General and special robot language
Neural computer and parallel processing
Human-Machine interaction
Multi-agent system
 Research fields in robotics
Applications research:
 Industry, agriculture, building
 Service
 Nuclear energy, high altitude, water and other dangerous
environments
 Military field
 Space field
 Medical field
 CIMS and FMS
 Microeconomics field
reconfigurable manufacturing system (unmanned factory)
 Trend in Robotics
The main developing direction of robots is intelligence, including
detailed issues :
 Personate : both in appearance and in intelligence
 Multi-function: provide high quality service for human
 Adaption: skillful to changing environment.
 Popularization: toys, tools, assistance…
 Large scale and small scale
 Key technology: telepresence technology, virtual reality,
multi-agent, artificial neural network, bionic technology,
information fusion, Nanotechnology, etc.
 Academic Resource in Robotics
International Journal:
• International Journal of Robotics Research
• IEEE Transactions on Robotics
• IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE
• Journal of Field Robotics
• ……
International Conference:
• IEEE International conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
(IROS)
• IEEE International conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO)
• International conference on Computer Vision (ICCV)
• IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
• ……
 Academic Resource in Robotics
Domestic organizations:
• Chinese Automation Association (中国自动化学会)
• China Artificial Intelligence Society (中国人工智能学会)

Journals and Conferences:

• Acta Automatica Sinica (自动化学报)
• ROBOT (机器人)
• China Control Conference (CCC)
• China Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)
• World Robot Conference(in Beijing!)
 Course objective

• To introduce the robotics theories, methods,

and techniques for the analysis, design,
control, and programming of robot systems.
 In this class
We can study two types of robots

(1) Robot arm (manipulator):

- Geometry;
- Motion

(2) Mobile Robot(mobility):

- sensing
- Navigation
What can we learn in this course?
(1) Mathematics
- A set of mathematic tools will be presented to study
the geometry of robot motion, which will allow a large
class of robotic manipulation problems to be analyzed
within a unified framework.
(2) System integration
- Mechanical design
- Sensing and perception
- Intelligence and planning
- Actuator
 Reference books

• John Craig. Introduction to Robotics Mechanics and Control (3th Edition)

[M]. Prentice-Hall. 2005.
• Perter Corke: Robotics, Vision and Control: Fundamental Algorithms in
MATLAB. [M]. Springer Tracts in Advaced Robotics. 2011.
• Reference lecture: Introduction To Robotics
http://open.163.com/special/opencourse/robotics.html

by Pref. Oussama Khatib

Stanford University
• Special thanks to
– Prof. Min Tan and De Xu at Institute of Automation,
Chinese Academy of Sciences
– Prof. Hongdong Li at Research School of
Engineering, Australian National University
– Prof. Zhun Fan at Mechanical Engineering,
Denmark Technical University
for their course resource for Robotics.
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Coordinate Frames
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Direct Kinematics
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Inverse Kinematics
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Differential Motion
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Robot Arm Statics

tool
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Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Dynamics
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Trajectory planning & control
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Programming & simulation
Fundamental concepts in Robotics
Links and joints

Links
(elementer)
Joints

End Effector

Robot Base
Thank you!