Control of a nonholonomic mobile robot using an RBF network

This article deals with handling unknown factors, such as external disturbance and unknown dynamics, for mobile robot control. We propose a radial-basis function (RBF) network-based controller to compensate for these. The stability of the proposed controller is proven using the Lyapunov function. To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, several simulation results are presented. Through the simulations, we show that the proposed controller can overcome the modelling uncertainty and the disturbances. The proposed RBF controller also outperforms previous work from the viewpoint of computation time, which is a crucial fact for real-time applications.This work was presented in part at the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 24–26, 2003     

Neural network Reinforcement Learning for visual control of robot manipulators

It is known that most of the key problems in visual servo control of robots are related to the performance analysis of the system considering measurement and modeling errors. In this paper, the development and performance evaluation of a novel intelligent visual servo controller for a robot manipulator using neural network Reinforcement Learning is presented. By implementing machine learning techniques into the vision based control scheme, the robot is enabled to improve its performance online and to adapt to the changing conditions in the environment. Two different temporal difference algorithms (Q-learning and SARSA) coupled with neural networks are developed and tested through different visual control scenarios. A database of representative learning samples is employed so as to speed up the convergence of the neural network and real-time learning of robot behavior. Moreover, the visual servoing task is divided into two steps in order to ensure the visibility of the features: in the first step centering behavior of the robot is conducted using neural network Reinforcement Learning controller, while the second step involves switching control between the traditional Image Based Visual Servoing and the neural network Reinforcement Learning for enabling approaching behavior of the manipulator. The correction in robot motion is achieved with the definition of the areas of interest for the image features independently in both control steps. Various simulations are developed in order to present the robustness of the developed system regarding calibration error, modeling error, and image noise. In addition, a comparison with the traditional Image Based Visual Servoing is presented. Real world experiments on a robot manipulator with the low cost vision system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Adaptive output feedback tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot

An adaptive output feedback tracking controller for nonholonomic mobile robots is proposed to guarantee that the tracking errors are confined to an arbitrarily small ball. The major difficulties are caused by simultaneous existence of nonholonomic constraints, unknown system parameters and a quadratic term of unmeasurable states in the mobile robot dynamic system as well as their couplings. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a new adaptive control scheme including designing a new adaptive state feedback controller and two high-gain observers to estimate the unknown linear and angular velocities respectively. It is shown that the closed loop adaptive system is stable and the tracking errors are guaranteed to be within the pre-specified bounds which can be arbitrarily small. Simulation results also verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

Neural network control for a fire-fighting robot

The paper discusses the development of an associative, neural network as an on-line algorithm to train and control a fire-fighting robot. Learning is externally supervised with encoded target actions. The robot acquires basic navigation skills as well as the ability to detect a fire and to extinguish it.     

Adaptive control of nonlinear PID-based analog neural networks for a nonholonomic mobile robot

An adaptive controller of nonlinear PID-based analog neural networks is developed for the velocity- and orientation-tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot. A superb mixture of a conventional PID controller and a neural network, which has powerful capability of continuously online learning, adaptation and tackling nonlinearity, brings us the novel nonlinear PID-based analog neural network controller. It is appropriate for a kind of plant with nonlinearity uncertainties and disturbances. Computer simulation for a differentially driven nonholonomic mobile robot is carried out in the velocity- and orientation-tracking control of the nonholonomic mobile robot. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is demonstrated through the simulation experiment, which shows its superior performance and disturbance rejection.     

Neural network MBPC for mobile robot path tracking

This paper presents a way of implementing a model-based predictive controller (MBPC) for mobile robot path tracking. The method uses a non-linear model of mobile robot dynamics and thus allows an accurate prediction of the future trajectories. Constraints on the maximum attainable speeds are also considered by the algorithm. A multilayer perceptron is used to implement the MBPC. The perceptron has been trained to reproduce the MBPC bahaviour in a supervised way. Experimental results obtained when applying the neural network controller to a TRC labmate mobile platform are given in the paper.     

Saturated stabilization and tracking of a nonholonomic mobile robot

This paper presents a framework to deal with the problem of global stabilization and global tracking control for the kinematic model of a wheeled mobile robot in the presence of input saturations. A model-based control design strategy is developed via a simple application of passivity and normalization. Saturated, Lipschitz continuous, time-varying feedback laws are obtained and illustrated in a number of compelling simulations.     

Incremental supervised learning for mobile robot reactive control

Reactive control for a mobile robot can be defined as a mapping from a perceptual space to a command space. This mapping can be hard-coded by the user (potential fields, fuzzy logic), and can also be learnt. This paper is concerned with supervised learning for perception to action mapping for a mobile robot. Among the existing neural approaches for supervised learning of a function, we have selected the grow and learn network for its properties adapted to robotic problems: incrementality and flexible structure. We will present the results we have obtained with this network using first raw sensor data and then pre-processed measures with the automatic construction of virtual sensors.     

Tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot using compound cosine function neural networks

The purpose of this paper is to propose a compound cosine function neural network with continuous learning algorithm for the velocity and orientation angle tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot with nonlinear disturbances. Herein, two neural network (NN) controllers embedded in the closed-loop control system have the simple continuous learning and rapid convergence capability without the dynamics information of the mobile robot to realize the adaptive control of the mobile robot. The neuron function of the hidden layer in the three-layer feed-forward network structure is on the basis of combining a cosine function with a unipolar sigmoid function. The developed neural network controllers have simple algorithm and fast learning convergence because the weight values are only adjusted between the nodes in hidden layer and the output nodes, while the weight values between the input layer and the hidden layer are one, i.e. constant, without the weight adjustment. Therefore, the main advantages of this control system are the real-time control capability and the robustness by use of the proposed neural network controllers for a nonholonomic mobile robot with nonlinear disturbances. Through simulation experiments applied to the nonholonomic mobile robot with the nonlinear disturbances which are considered as dynamics uncertainty and external disturbances, the simulation results show that the proposed NN control system of nonholonomic mobile robots has real-time control capability, better robustness and higher control precision. The compound cosine function neural network provides us with a new way to solve tracking control problems for mobile robots.     

Control of a nonholonomic mobile robot using neural networks

A control structure that makes possible the integration of a kinematic controller and a neural network (NN) computed-torque controller for nonholonomic mobile robots is presented. A combined kinematic/torque control law is developed using backstepping and stability is guaranteed by Lyapunov theory. This control algorithm can be applied to the three basic nonholonomic navigation problems: tracking a reference trajectory, path following, and stabilization about a desired posture. Moreover, the NN controller proposed in this work can deal with unmodeled bounded disturbances and/or unstructured unmodeled dynamics in the vehicle. Online NN weight tuning algorithms do not require off-line learning yet guarantee small tracking errors and bounded control signals are utilized.     

Robust adaptive control of nonholonomic mobile robot with parameter and nonparameter uncertainties

This paper considers the tracking-control problem of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot with both parameter and nonparameter uncertainties. A robust adaptive controller is proposed with the aid of the adaptive backstepping technique and the learning ability of neural networks. The proposed controller guarantees that the tracking error converges to a small hall containing the origin. The hall's radius can be adjusted by control parameters. The proposed controller is successfully implemented in our simulator.     

A review on egomotion by means of differential epipolar geometry applied to the movement of a mobile robot

The estimation of camera egomotion is an old problem in computer vision. Since the 1980s, many approaches based on both the discrete and the differential epipolar constraint have been proposed. The discrete case is used mainly in self-calibrated stereoscopic systems, whereas the differential case deals with a single moving camera. This article surveys several methods for 3D motion estimation unifying the mathematics convention which are then adapted to the common case of a mobile robot moving on a plane. Experimental results are given on synthetic data covering more than 0.5 million estimations. These surveyed algorithms have been programmed and are available on the Internet.     

Homography-based visual servo tracking control of a wheeled mobile robot

A visual servo tracking controller is developed in this paper for a monocular camera system mounted on an underactuated wheeled mobile robot (WMR) subject to nonholonomic motion constraints (i.e., the camera-in-hand problem). A prerecorded image sequence (e.g., a video) of three target points is used to define a desired trajectory for the WMR. By comparing the target points from a stationary reference image with the corresponding target points in the live image and the prerecorded sequence of images, projective geometric relationships are exploited to construct Euclidean homographies. The information obtained by decomposing the Euclidean homography is used to develop a kinematic controller. A Lyapunov-based analysis is used to develop an adaptive update law to actively compensate for the lack of depth information required for the translation error system. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate the control design.     

Neural network payload estimation for adaptive robot control

A concept is proposed for utilizing artificial neural networks to enhance the high-speed tracking accuracy of robotic manipulators. Tracking accuracy is a function of the controller's ability to compensate for disturbances produced by dynamical interactions between the links. A model-based control algorithm uses a nominal model of those dynamical interactions to reduce the disturbances. The problem is how to provide accurate dynamics information to the controller in the presence of payload uncertainty and modeling error. Neural network payload estimation uses a series of artificial neural networks to recognize the payload variation associated with a degradation in tracking performance. The network outputs are combined with a knowledge of nominal dynamics to produce a computationally efficient direct form of adaptive control. The concept is validated through experimentation and analysis on the first three links of a PUMA-560 manipulator. A multilayer perceptron architecture with two hidden layers is used. Integration of the principles of neural network pattern recognition and model-based control produces a tracking algorithm with enhanced robustness to incomplete dynamic information. Tracking efficacy and applicability to robust control algorithms are discussed.     

Supervised learning technique for a mobile robot controller in a visual line tracking task

This article deals with the development of learning methods for an intelligent control system for an autonomous mobile robot. On the basis of visual servoing, an approach to learning the skill of tracking colored guidelines is proposed. This approach utilizes a robust and adaptive image processing method to acquire features of the colored guidelines and convert them into the controller input. The supervised learning procedure and the neural network controller are discussed. The method of obtaining the learning data and training the neural network are described. Experimental results are presented at the end of the article. This work was presented, in part, at the Sixth International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo, Japan, January 15–17, 2001     

Vision-based interception of a moving target with a nonholonomic mobile robot

A novel vision-based scheme is presented for driving a nonholonomic mobile robot to intercept a moving target. The proposed method has a two-level structure. On the lower level, the pan–tilt platform carrying the on-board camera is controlled so as to keep the target as close as possible to the center of the image plane. On the higher level, the relative position of the target is retrieved from its image coordinates and the camera pan–tilt angles through simple geometry, and used to compute a control law which drives the robot to the target. Various possible choices are discussed for the high-level robot controller, and the associated stability properties are rigorously analysed. The proposed visual interception method is validated through simulations as well as experiments on the mobile robot MagellanPro.     

Navigation control for a mobile robot

This article describes a navigation method of a mobile robot which uses a single camera and a guide mark. A travel path is instructed to the robot by means of path drawn on a monitor screen. The image of the guide mark provides information regarding the robot's position and heading direction. The heading direction is adjusted while moving if any deviation from the specified path is detected. The proposed method has been implemented in a mobile robot which runs at the average speed of 2.5 ft/s. without deviating more than one foot from the specified path in an indoor environment. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A survey of robot learning from demonstration

We present a comprehensive survey of robot Learning from Demonstration (LfD), a technique that develops policies from example state to action mappings. We introduce the LfD design choices in terms of demonstrator, problem space, policy derivation and performance, and contribute the foundations for a structure in which to categorize LfD research. Specifically, we analyze and categorize the multiple ways in which examples are gathered, ranging from teleoperation to imitation, as well as the various techniques for policy derivation, including matching functions, dynamics models and plans. To conclude we discuss LfD limitations and related promising areas for future research.     

Adaptive tracking control for uncertain dynamic nonholonomic mobile robots based on visual servoing

The trajectory tracking control problem of dynamic nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots is considered via visual servoing feedback. A kinematic controller is firstly presented for the kinematic model, and then, an adaptive sliding mode controller is designed for the uncertain dynamic model in the presence of parametric uncertainties associated with the camera system. The proposed controller is robust not only to structured uncertainties such as mass variation but also to unstructured one such as disturbances. The asymptotic convergence of tracking errors to equilibrium point is rigorously proved by the Lyapunov method. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the performance of the control law.