Inertial Meaurenient Systxm for the Position Control of a Flexible

H.A. Cronje; J. Goriws Rand Afrikaans University l?.O.Box 524 Aucklandpark 2006 Republic of South Africa Fax $27 11 489-2532 rc@ingI.m u . ac ,za,jg@iiig .rau .ac.za 1

Abstract -. In this project a way to measure the pcsition of tlie end of a robot a r m using an incrt,ial irieasurement system was designed and tested. J.r:zclitionally large robotss determine tlicir positions jii the work space by mems of seiisors affixed t,o the joints of the arm seginon-ts. This method caiiiiol be used in the case of flexible arms, due to lhe bending of the arm, which in turn influences the position of the arms elidpoint. I t was decided to make UfjCt of t h e e angular rate serisors to determine the 1x3sition of the arms end point, since these sensors measure the dispiaceir erit of the arm irrespective of the movement of tile joints in the arm. II is thu:j possible to determine trie position of the arms endpoint - irrespective of 2ending or movement of t,lie joints. The esperimen1,d system is based on tlirce piezoelectric vibrating gyroscopes afixed a small two-segment robot a.rrri. Keywords: r o b o t ; navigation; gyroscope; ine r t i a l m e a s u r e m e n t systein

tha,t t,h.cre is 110 flexing of the a r m under the load , robot, ariiis are made very rigid. This, I i o ~ e v e r , m a l m the robot, arm heavier and bigger, which is not alwa,ys accept,able. In the agricultural envii:oninerit there is a nic;!ie lor longer lighter ariiis. The same linlds t r u e for the space industry where niass is a.t, a prcmium. ?he problem faced by robot designer. is how t o determine the position of the end effector for less rigid robot arms[9]. A solution is to usc a,n inertial crieasurernent unit, consistin,g of orily angular rake sensors [3]. Tlie unit comprises three piezoelectric vibrating gyroscopes attached to it robot arm with configuration as shown i n Fig.lo In the case oi the robot used,all movement of in,

In the modern wol-Id cif inaiiufacturing and ellgineering, automation is playiiig a bigger role tliari ever before [l]. The use of rolmts and automated prccesses are becoming more coiiirnon, but so are the challenges encountered in these processes. It is n o t ~ i i c o i n m o ~ i industiial robots l o be very large for and bulky, due to the typo of work t.liey do arid t h e working eilviroriment [a]. h i : high-accuracy rd3botic manipula.tioii the posit,ion of the erid point o f tlie manipulator is very irn p o r h n t to the posil.ioii cotilrol. of the robot,. M x 1 co1iiniercia.l robots inea.sure tho position o the f by the amount of rotal,ior?about the joints in .:he arm segmrnt,s, ina.kirig llse Qf some forrn of ro tat,ion sensQr. These sciisors arc unable to measure tl-ic flexing of the robot ;trm under the influence of cxt,crioy forces. To eiisii re

Figure 1: The p l a c e m e n t of the a n g u l a r rate

cieii~oi-s the robot arm. on

t.erest can be iiiikec-l t o only rotation aborit a n y o f t,lie axes of the robl:)t. Ihe rnovcrnerit of the tip otf the ann l i e d not be any physical rotamtion the of a r m about any of t l l p i L x p s . b u t could be due to the flexing of thc arm. By making use of a. spherical coordi:na.te system, it. is possible to represent, the
position of tlre 2Lriris endpoint i n :ips,c;e hy memm

of vect,ors as sliowi-I i n Fig.2. The position of the endpoint of the a r m is given by (p$ 4 ) , where ,U 8,

1141

2
Figure 2: The v e c t o r r e p r e s e n t a t i o n method of the p o s i t i o n of tlie tip of the r o b o t arm. consists of and ,22, is the angle between true B liorizontd and j j , and q5 is the amount of rotation about the vertical axis z. 0 is dependent on ,?jand can be determined by measuring the rate of change in the orientation of vectors i 1 and i 2 (i.e. of 01 and 8 2 [3][4]. These changes are measured using the angular rate sensors attached to the arm as shown in 1. The output of these sensors is a voltage proportional to the rate of change in the orientation of these devices along their measuring axes. By integrating the outputs from these sensors, the change in angle a s a function of time, can be determined [SI:
t=T

DESCRIPTION OF THE

RATE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

COMPONENTS
The fundamental requirement for the system described in this paper is the ability to determine its position without fixed refei ence points [ ] S . T h e Rate Measurement System (RMS) 7[] discussed above consists of three piezoelectric gyroscopes (Gyrostar) manufactured by Murata Ltd [IO]. which is small, and relatively inexpensive. It was initially developed for the automotive market, but has since seen service in a wide range of applications. To date the fiain application for the Gyrostar was in aiding vehicle navigation systems to keep track of short turns when the vehicle is out of contact with reference points obtained from additional sensors. The output of the gyro is a voltage proportional to the angular velocity of the rotating base on which it is mounted. The Gyrostar is capable of measuring a rotation rate in the range of 1 9 0 / s with an accuracy of 22.2.&0.65mV/deg/sec a t 25C 3C. This range is well within the maximum rotation rate of the robot arm.

Fl

8 = 1 = , wdt
By determining the change in position of vectors /;1 and i 2 the change in j, with respect of the true liori! zontal can be calculated. By adding a third angular rate sensor with a measuring direction perpendicular in at least one direction with the horizontal plane the cliange i n 4 can be determined as well. To determine the rotation of the vector p about the vertical z axes, sensor s3 is used. From the output of this sensor the value of @ can be determined. The measurement coordinates of the sensor s3 is however dcpendent; on the position of the end of the arm. It is therefore necessary to first determine the rotation a.ngle of the sensor sg with respect to tlie fixed earth cooi-diiiate system. The final position of the tip of t,hc a r m is now given in terms of p,8! 4:

ERRORMODELOF TI-IE GYROSCOPES

There is a need for an error model for the sensors used in the RMS, to make an attempt to reduce the effect of unbounded position a i d orientation errors [GI. Depeiiding on the success of t h e error
modeling process the robot a r m might be operated on the RMS alone. I n Inertial Navigation Systems

(INS) the major contrihut,or t o navigation errors is gyroscopes, and is mainly dependent on the device technology. For the RMS,the nature of the measured parameters is vastly different from those found in aerospace applications, thus the technology developed i n tlie aerospace field cannot be iinplemented directly.
I n order to
d C V d O J ) ail

error model for the gyro-

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scopes, they werr suhjo( ted to zero inpiit for sub stantial periods of tiiiie and their outputs were logged. F i g 3 shows the result for a three houi:, trial. FOI the Gyrostai the ideal output for no input should bc a con:,tant voltage of rt 2.517. These tests also " k t e that tlie initial start-up

with it simple feedbxk loop using the conventional positioning system. This position was compared to that of the same arm-configuration as determined by tllit: 12MS. After these experiments the robot atrm was re fitted with a l'iexible robot arm, to show thai, the position of the iendpoint of a flexible arm can he detc.rmined using the RMS. Equxtinn 2 is solved in time and the values are up dated <LS the robot moves along. Due to the tend ency or angular ratti sensots to drift, a way had to Le fo1111d to eliminate the drift, arid to be sure of tlic staitiiig position of the robot. Therc. ai e way', of c ~ l i i n t n ~ t i ntlie drift, such as using estiniator:, g r n i i ~ i ~ offset errors i n real time Tllis tlic t , dit1 not vilxe the piooblcin of thr ini\,ial state of tlic> ai in lt was ilieiefoie decided to m ; A use of '1 self-iesetting algoIitlim. The arm would b e artiTvcfoi a given time, then it woiild return t o a fixed position that can be determined by hardmarc switch c 3 . This will provide ;L fixed reference point foi evri y \et of movlemcnts.

2.55

2.5

Figure 3: Output of tlie three Gyrostars when subjected to no input

E;

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

vdues of the output da,a a,re at a lower level thaii the ideal, arid the \Ta.lueEi gradually iiicreasc exponentially wiLh time. The repcatiLbility of tlw tests indicates the pi-eseiice of a small time-varying bias. This bias can bc linked to thermal effect>s, and causes an output drift of about 25mV(1 .l'L"/s)., 15 nrin. after start-up, tfiere is il further drift of about lOm1~(0.45"/s) tluring the m x t six hours, provided the environnieiit, docs riot cha~ige.Using t,lre Levcnberg.-R/La.rqua,rtiterative least-squares i i l method a nonlinear parametric niodel was fitted to the data from the gyros11-opcs.

'The moasiirement system was tested on a robot as described above. T h e piezoelectric gyroscopes have a resolution of 22.21nl//"/s. The data is ca,ptured using a 12 Hit analog to digital converter. T h e input ra.nge for A/D is -1QV to 1OV giving a resolution 'of ; h u t , 5mV. This in turn gives a ma,ximum rt:solution of 0.225'/'s for the Gyroscopes.

To test the system, the robot was given set:; of ( 3 0 ordiiratcs arid the cllis1lgc in position was logged as the r o h t moved from the initial position tot tlie fii i . d position. Fig. 4 #showstypical results obtained from tlic st,iLndard position sensors mounted at the joints of the arin. In Fig. 5 the position of the end point, of t,lie ariii is sliowir as nieasured hy the 13lVLS.

I n cquation csx is the error nrodel fitted to each of the gyroscopes with utiic~iicvalues of 2',Cla?idCY2.

'rliis y.,per ~,)resentcldresults obtained from using iiicrliai measurement sensors for determining t,he eiitlpoint, position 01' a. robot arm. This systerri is c;rpablc of clctcrrriiriirig the position of a flcsiLle robot a r m , without the need t,o model the a r m . 'l'ltis allows for robots of INS rigid construction and longer ii r i i i s to he a.ccurat,ely controlled. Ot,her possible applicat,ions oi' this system include tliE positi'oriiiig of loads at. the end of tethers, a.nd the posit ioniiig o f large craiies. It c m also be used :in C O I L -

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bigure I: The position of the endpoint of tlie arm as measured by the standard methods
junction with standard mea,surerneiit devices, to ensure the accurate position-control of a robot, arms end effector in the case of a rigid a r m under the influence of cxternal c M u r b a n c e Porccs. This can lead to bett,er task pianning in order to rcduce work load stresses on the robot superst,ructure.

Figure 5: The position of the endpoint of the arm as measured by the RMS.
7i.ansactions
OIL

Robolics and Automntiou, Vol.

i l , NO. 3 , pp 328-342, J u n e 1995.

[7] M.M. Iiuritsky and M.S. Goldstein,

eferences
[I] M.Shinners,Modern Control System Theory and Design First Edition, John TvVilcy and Sons, Inc, 1992
~

Jntroduction and Overview of Inertial Navigation,Autonornous i3obot Vehicles 1.3. Cox a,nd G.T. Wilfong, Eds. New York: Springer--Verlag,

1990.

[SI T, Shanahan and J.E. Mc Cartliy,IIighAccuracy Inertial Navigation ,Autonomous Robot iehicles I.J. Cox and 61.. Wilfong, Eds. New
York: Springer-Verlag, 1990.

[a]B.

Roberts and 13. Bhanu.,hicrtial Na.viption Sknsor and Integrated Motioii Analysis for Autonomous Vehicle Navigation,Hone~well Systems and dlesenrch Center, M N 554113

[ 3 ] E. Sears, M. Zcrmansky a$nd 13. \ioung.,Tjnivcrsity Physics, Sixt,h Edition; Addison-Wesley Pubiisliing Compariy, pp.39-GS, 1982.

[9] S. Jain and P.:(horraini,Positioriing of Unknown Flexible Pay!oads for Robotic Arms Using a Wrist-Mounted Force/Torque Sensor ,IEEE Traiesaciions o n Control Systems Technology, lTol.3 , NO. 2, pp 189-201, Jiiiie 1995.
[IO] M u r a t a hlanufactiiring Co.Ltd., Gyrostar ENV-Uiih Piezoelectric Vibrat,ory Gyroscope