Stéphane Caro

Marceau Métillon, Philippe Cardou, Kévin Subrin et al.

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs) offer high payload capacities, large translational workspace and high dynamic performances. The rigid base frame of the CDPR is connected in parallel to the moving platform using cables. However, their orientation workspace is usually limited due to cable/cable and cable/moving platform collisions. This paper deals with the design, modelling and prototyping of a hybrid robot. This robot, which is composed of a CDPR mounted in series with a Parallel Spherical Wrist (PSW), has both a large translational workspace and an unlimited orientation workspace. It should be noted that the six degrees of freedom (DOF) motions of the moving platform of the CDPR, namely, the base of the PSW, and the three-DOF motion of the PSW are actuated by means of eight actuators fixed to the base. As a consequence, the overall system is underactuated and its total mass and inertia in motion is reduced.

Sana Baklouti, Eric Courteille, Philippe Lemoine et al.

This paper deals with the use of input-shaping filters in conjunction with a feed-forward control of Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs), while integrating cable tension calculation to satisfy positive cable tensions along the prescribed trajectory of the moving-platform. This method aims to attenuate the oscillatory motions of the moving-platform. Thus, the input signal is modified to make it self-cancel residual vibrations. 5 The effectiveness, in terms of moving-platform oscillation attenuation, of the proposed closed-loop control method combined with shaping inputs is experimentally studied on a suspended and non-redundant CDPR prototype. This confirms residual vibration reduction improvement with respect to the unshaped control in terms of Peak-to-Peak amplitude of velocity error, which can achieve 72 % while using input-shaping filters.

Zane Zake, François Chaumette, Nicolò Pedemonte et al.

Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CDPRs) are a kind of parallel robots that have cables instead of rigid links. Implementing vision-based control on CDPRs leads to a good final accuracy despite modeling errors and other perturbations in the system. However, unlike final accuracy, the trajectory to the goal can be affected by the perturbations in the system. This paper proposes the use of trajectory tracking to improve the robustness of 2 1/2 D visual servoing control of CDPRs. Lyapunov stability analysis is performed and, as a result, a novel workspace, named control stability workspace, is defined. This workspace defines the set of moving-platform poses where the robot is able to execute its task while being stable. The improvement of robustness is clearly shown in experimental validation.

Zhen Li, Julian Erskine, Stéphane Caro et al.

Aerial Cable Towed Systems (ACTS) are composed of several Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) connected to a payload by cables. Compared to towing objects from individual aerial vehicles, an ACTS has significant advantages such as heavier payload capacity, modularity, and full control of the payload pose. They are however generally large with limited ability to meet geometric constraints while avoiding collisions between UAVs. This paper presents the modelling, performance analysis, design, and a proposed controller for a novel ACTS with variable cable lengths, named Variable Aerial Cable Towed System (VACTS).Winches are embedded on the UAVs for actuating the cable lengths similar to a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot to increase the versatility of the ACTS. The general geometric, kinematic and dynamic models of the VACTS are derived, followed by the development of a centralized feedback linearization controller. The design is based on a wrench analysis of the VACTS, without constraining the cables to pass through the UAV center of mass, as in current works. Additionally, the performance of the VACTS and ACTS are compared showing that the added versatility comes at the cost of payload and configuration flexibility. A prototype confirms the feasibility of the system.

Alexandr Klimchik, Yier Wu, Stéphane Caro et al.

The paper is devoted to the accuracy improvement of robot-based milling by using an enhanced manipulator model that takes into account both geometric and elastostatic factors. Particular attention is paid to the model parameters identification accuracy. In contrast to other works, the proposed approach takes into account impact of the gravity compensator and link weights on the manipulator elastostatic properties. In order to improve the identification accuracy, the industry oriented performance measure is used to define optimal measurement configurations and an enhanced partial pose measurement method is applied for the identification of the model parameters. The advantages of the developed approach are confirmed by experimental results that deal with the elastostatic calibration of a heavy industrial robot used for milling. The achieved accuracy improvement factor is about 2.4.

Alexandr Klimchik, Stéphane Caro, Yier Wu et al.

The paper focuses on the stiffness modeling of robotic manipulators with gravity compensators. The main attention is paid to the development of the stiffness model of a spring-based compensator located between sequential links of a serial structure. The derived model allows us to describe the compensator as an equivalent non-linear virtual spring integrated in the corresponding actuated joint. The obtained results have been efficiently applied to the stiffness modeling of a heavy industrial robot of the Kuka family.

Alexandr Klimchik, Yier Wu, Claire Dumas et al.

The paper focuses on the stiffness modeling of heavy industrial robots with gravity compensators. The main attention is paid to the identification of geometrical and elastostatic parameters and calibration accuracy. To reduce impact of the measurement errors, the set of manipulator configurations for calibration experiments is optimized with respect to the proposed performance measure related to the end-effector position accuracy. Experimental results are presented that illustrate the advantages of the developed technique.

Alexandr Klimchik, Yier Wu, Stéphane Caro et al.

The paper focuses on the calibration of serial industrial robots using partial pose measurements. In contrast to other works, the developed advanced robot calibration technique is suitable for geometrical and elastostatic calibration. The main attention is paid to the model parameters identification accuracy. To reduce the impact of measurement errors, it is proposed to use directly position measurements of several points instead of computing orientation of the end-effector. The proposed approach allows us to avoid the problem of non-homogeneity of the least-square objective, which arises in the classical identification technique with the full-pose information. The developed technique does not require any normalization and can be efficiently applied both for geometric and elastostatic identification. The advantages of a new approach are confirmed by comparison analysis that deals with the efficiency evaluation of different identification strategies. The obtained results have been successfully applied to the elastostatic parameters identification of the industrial robot employed in a machining work-cell for aerospace industry.

Alexandr Klimchik, Yier Wu, Stéphane Caro et al.

The paper deals with the modeling and identification of the gravity compensators used in heavy industrial robots. The main attention is paid to the geometrical parameters identification and calibration accuracy. To reduce impact of the measurement errors, the design of calibration experiments is used. The advantages of the developed technique are illustrated by experimental results

Yier Wu, Alexandr Klimchik, Anatol Pashkevich et al.

The paper deals with the design of experiments for manipulator geometric and elastostatic calibration based on the test-pose approach. The main attention is paid to the efficiency improvement of numerical techniques employed in the selection of optimal measurement poses for calibration experiments. The advantages of the developed technique are illustrated by simulation examples that deal with the geometric calibration of the industrial robot of serial architecture.

Alexandr Klimchik, Anatoly Pashkevich, Stéphane Caro et al.

The paper focuses on stiffness matrix computation for manipulators with passive joints, compliant actuators and flexible links. It proposes both explicit analytical expressions and an efficient recursive procedure that are applicable in the general case and allow obtaining the desired matrix either in analytical or numerical form. Advantages of the developed technique and its ability to produce both singular and non-singular stiffness matrices are illustrated by application examples that deal with stiffness modeling of two Stewart-Gough platforms.