SICE Annual Conference 2012 August 20-23, 2012, Akita University, Akita, Japan

Robust Control for a Delta Robot

Hui-Hung Lin , Chih-Chin Wen2, Shi-Wei Lin3, Yuan-Hung Tai4 and Chao-Shu Liu5*
1-3

Metal Industries Research & Development Centre, Taiwan, R.O.C

(Tel : +886-7-351-3121 ext.2629; E-mail: hlin@mail.mirdc.org.tw, ccwen@mail.mirdc.org.tw, strongerlin@mail.mirdc.org.tw)

4

Institute of Mechanical and Precision Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, R.O.C (Tel : +886-7-381-4526 ext.5376; E-mail: 1100303107@kuas.edu.tw)

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, R.O.C (Tel : +886-7-381-4526 ext.5370; E-mail: joshualiu@kuas.edu.tw)

Abstract: For the needs of precision and smooth control, a robust control scheme for a delta robot is implemented in this paper. Parallel robots have many advantages comparing to the serial robots, such as high flexibility, high stiffness, and high accuracy. However, to achieve a higher accuracy, the static and dynamic behavior must be better understood. In addition, parallel robots are highly coupled systems and easily to be disturbed and to induce chatters by each other for non-simultaneous convergent phenomena. The paper mainly focuses on realizing and controlling a delta robot robustly, and to improve the control problems. Besides, to satisfy the requirements of various applications for the kind of robots, we need to develop a set of simultaneously convergent servo control system. Therefore, a manifold deformation design scheme with the capacity of smooth robustness under preset motion frequency based on the topological analysis about system dynamics is very suitable for the robot system. The validation of the robust method will be shown in this paper. Keywords: Robust Control, Delta Robot, Manifold Deformation.

1. INTRODUCTION
For the needs of precision and smooth control, a robust control scheme for a delta robot is implemented in this paper. Robots have been applied in automation industries broadly. For their specific structures, structure design and how to control stably are still challenging problems. The structures of industrial robots are often divided into two parts, serial structures and parallel structures. The idea of parallel mechanism originates from Bricard. Since 1965, Stewart published about Steward Platform, which is a parallel structure with six -degree freedoms and is applied to be fright simulators to train the fright skill for pilots. Later, MacCallion deigned a parallel robot arm based on Steward Platform and used it into assembling lines. During period of 1980, a kind of delta mechanism is addressed by Clavel at Swiss Lausanne Engineering Institute, that has been developed as industrial robots and applied in manufacturing and packaging lines. Especially in medicine area, for the requirements of highly accurate positioning and chattering free for human operations, the kind of delta robots is applied in surgical operation. [1] Parallel robots have many advantages comparing to the serial robots, such as high flexibility, high stiffness, and high accuracy. However, to achieve a higher accuracy, the static and dynamic behavior must be better understood. In addition, parallel robots are highly coupled systems and easily to be disturbed and to induce chatters by each other for non-simultaneous convergent phenomena. Besides, to satisfy the

requirements of various applications for the kind of robots, we need to develop a set of simultaneously convergent servo control system. Considering various approaches, a manifold deformation design scheme with the capacity of smooth robustness under preset motion frequency based on the topological analysis about system dynamics is very suitable for the robot system. [2][3] A manifold is a mathematical space with specific dimensions. For most applications, a differentiable manifold is often used and the local charts are compatible in a certain sense, directions, tangent spaces, and differentiable functions can be defined on that manifold. A deformation of an analytic structure is a family of analytic spaces depending on parameters. The theory of deformations originated with the problem of classification of all possible pairwise non-isomorphic complex structures on a given differentiable real manifold. It has been known that the manifold of a system's dynamics in a topological space can be constructed by a vector field and the combinational dynamic behavior is equivalent to the process of manifold deformation in a defined space and the target of the control efforts are designed to force the system states to follow and keep on the desired manifold robustly for every time interval. The basic idea of this scheme is to compare the difference between the locations of the current states and the desired manifold during every sampling interval, so as that we can predict the control effort directly to force the controlled system moving toward the desired

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PR0001/12/0000- 0880 400 2012 SICE

manifold and the effects of perturbations also can thus be estimated from the state error without the derivative of high order state. Alternatively, we can directly force the plant to act as the desired behavior and thus eliminate the adverse effect due to perturbations during one sampling interval. We apply the manifold deformation design scheme in robust controls of a delta robot to achieve the following objectives: (a) To implement the controls of a delta robot. (b) To solve the problems of coupling and chatters induced by each other for non-simultaneous convergent phenomena.

of yi axis is from Ai to the rotational axis, the direction of zi axis is parallel to z axis and angle i is measured from x axis to xi axis. The axis angles of the ith limb are shown in Fig.3, in which p is the vector of the central point on the moving plane, 1i is from xi axis to Ai Bi , 2i is the intersection of the extension of Ai Bi and the plane of xi-zi, 3i is the angle from yi to Bi C i .

2. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The Delta robot has been presented by Clave as a three-degree-of-freedom parallel robot, dedicated to high speed applications. [1] A parallel robot (Fig.1) consists of moving platform and a fixed base, connected by several linkages.

Fig. 3. The axis angles of the ith limb The closed loop for each linkage can be written as follow:

Ai Bi + Bi C i = OP + PC i OAi

(1)

Modify (1) on coordinate system, Ai-xiyizi, we can get:

a cos 1i + b sin 3i cos(1i + 2i ) c xi = c b cos 3i yi c zi a sin 1i + b sin 3i sin(1i + 2i )

In which

(2)

Fig. 1. A parallel robot

c xi cos i c = sin i yi c 0 zi

sin i cos i 0

0 p x h r 0 p y + 0 1 0 pz

(3)

2.1 Inverse Kinematics

Ci is the position relative to the coordinate system Ai-xiyizi, a and b are the lengths of Ai Bi and Bi C i , respectively. p = [ p x

py

p z ]T is the position of p

relative to the coordinate system, O-xyz. Angle 3i can be obtained from (2),

3i = cos 1

c yi b

(4)

Then, 2i can be determined by the sum of square cxi, cyi and czi.. Fig. 2. The coordinate systems of a parallel robot We consider the coordinate systems of a parallel robot as Fig. 2. A reference coordinate system O-xyz connects to the central point O on the fixed plane, in which x axis and y axis locate on the fixed plane, and z axis points up orthogonally. Another coordinate system Ai-xiyizi connects to the point Ai on the fixed plane, in which the direction of xi axis is the extension of OAi , the direction
2 2 2 2ab sin 3i cos 2i + a 2 + b 2 = c xi + c yi + c zi

(5)

Therefore,

2i = cos 1 g
In which, g = . 2ab sin 3i Finally, 1i can be also obtained form (2).
2 2 2 2 c xi + c2 yi + c zi a b

(6)

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2.2 Forward Kinematics

Firstly, let cxi, cyi and czi of (2) be substituted by (3), we can get:

3. ROBOT DYNAMICS
From Fig.3, we have known that the Jacobian matrix

J of robot expresses the relation between the input joint

rates and the end-effector output velocity as follows: [4]

b sin 3i cos(1i + 2i ) = b cos 3i sin sin( + ) b 3i 1i 2i

cos i sin i 0 sin i cos i 0 0 p x a cos 1i r + h (7) 0 0 py + 1 a sin 1i pz

  = J

(11)

 = [v Where px
velocity vector.

v py v pz ]T is the velocity of the    ]T is the input joint  = [ end-effector, 11 12 13

In the case of the delta robot, the constraint equations in each limb can be chosen as

From the sum of squares in (7), we can obtain:

2 2 b = px + py + p z2 2( p x cos i + p y sin i ) i 2

(a cos 1i + r h) 2 p z a sin i
+ ( a cos i + r h) 2 + a 2 sin 2 i (for i=1, 2, 3) (8)

Px cos i i = Py sin i P z 0

sin i cos i 0

0 0 1
i = 1, 2, 3. (12)

If equation (8)(when i=j) subtracts the one (i=1), we can get:

Lr Lh La cos 1i + 0 0 0 L sin 1i a

e1 j p x + e2 j p y + e3 j p z + e4 j = 0 (for j=2, 3)
In which,

(9)

The Jacobian matrix of the delta robot can be obtained

1T T J = 2 T 3
1

e1 j = 2 cos j (a cos 1 j + r h) 2 cos 1 (a cos11 + r h) e2 j = 2 sin j (a cos 1 j + r h) 2 sin 1 (a cos 11 + r h)

e3 j = 2a sin 1 j 2a sin 11
e4 j = (a cos 1 j + r h) 2 a 2 sin 2 1 j

1T R1 0 0

0 2 R2 0
T

0 T 3 R3 0

(13)

where

(a cos11 + r h) 2 a 2 sin 2 11
Expanding (9) (j=2, 3), we can get two linear independent equations. Solve and substitute (9) (i=1), we can obtain:
2 g0 px + g1 p x + g 2 = 0

cos i Ri = sin i 0
 = [ a px Let 

sin i cos i 0
a py

0 La sin 1i 0 0 1 La cos 1i

i = 1, 2, 3.

a pz ]T is the acceleration of the

(10)

  = [ end-effector, 11

and

  ]T is the input joint 12 13      ]T is the input joint   velocity vector, = [11 12 13

acceleration vector, therefore, we can get the relation as bellow:
1 T   = T 2 T 3
1

l2 l2 g 0 = 1 + 12 + 4 2 l2 l2
g1 =

2l 0 l1 2l 3 l 4 2l l 2al 4 sin 11 + 2 2l 5 cos 1 5 1 sin 1 2 l2 l2 l2 l2

2 l2 2l l 2al3 l0 sin 11 + 3 + a 2 sin 2 11 5 1 sin 1 2 l l2 l2 l2 2 2

 T 1  T J + 2  T 3

g 2 = l 52 b 2 +

In which, l 0 = e32 e43 e33 e42 , l1 = e13e32 e12 e33 ,

  T R + T R 0 0 1 1 1 1   (14) T T   R + R 0 0 2 2 2 2 + J T T   0 0 3 R3 +3 R3

l 2 = e22 e33 e23 e32 , l 3 = e23 e42 e22 e43 ,

where
1T T J = 2 T 3
1

l 4 = e12 e23 e13 e22 , l5 = ac11 + r h .

Therefore, px can be obtained, and then py and pz can be also obtained by (9).

1T R1 0 0 T 0 2 R2 0 T 0 0 2 R3

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 Px cos i i = Py sin i P z 0

sin i cos i 0

0 0 1

 + N(, ) G ear D U = [I() + G ear I a G ear ]

(19)

Lr Lh La cos1i + 0 0 0 L sin 1i a
 cos P x i sin   i = P + y i  0 P z sin i cos i 0

, i = 1, 2, 3.

 characterize the desired trajectory Let d and d vector that is to be tracked, and x1, x2 denote the position and velocity tracking error vectors defined by   , respectively. x1= d and x 2 = d

Then we write the state equations as follows.

1 = x2 x

0 La sin 1i  0 0 1i , i = 1, 2, 3. 1 L a cos 1i

 - [I() + G I G ]-1 G D U 2 = x d ear a ear ear

) + [I() + G ear Ia G ear ]-1 N(,

in which

(20)

cos i Ri = sin i 0
cos i  Ri = sin i 0

sin i cos i 0
sin i cos i 0

0 La sin 1i 0 0 1 La cos 1i
0 La cos 1i  0 0 i 1 La sin 1i

, i = 1, 2, 3.
Let
, i = 1, 2, 3.

x1 = [ x11 ,x12 ," ,x1p ]T .

B = -[I n + G ear I a G ear ] -1 G ear D
-1

and
-1

B=
Gear D ,

[ I n + G ear I a G ear ] G ear D [ I( ) + G ear I a G ear ]

we can simplify (20) and rewrite it as follows.

1 = x2 x
 + ( B+ B) U + [I( ) 2 = x d ) + G ear I a G ear ]-1 N (,

The dynamics of a robot, usually, can be described as the following nonlinear differential equations:
 + N(, ), T = I ( )

(15)

(21)

and
 ) = V(,  ) + G() + F(, )+T , N(, d

(16)

4. MANIFOLD DEFORMATION SCHEME

Now consider a certain class of nonlinear system which is assumed piecewise differentiable and parametrized by time t in a defined dimension and described by the following differential equations,

in which is a px1 vector of joint variables, T is a px1 vector of input torque, I () is a pxp symmetric  ) is a and positive definite matrix of inertia, V(,
pxp matrix of centrifugal and Coriolis terms, G() is

 1 (t) = x 2 (t) , x
 2 (t ) = x 3 (t ) , x

 ) is a px1 a px1 vector of gravitational terms, F(, vector of frictional terms, and Td is a px1 vector of any unknown but bounded disturbances.
Because the robot manipulator is actuated by some actuators equipped with gear trains, the dynamics of actuators are considered as below:

 n ( t) = f (X(t )) + ( b + b(X( t), t)) u (t ) + g(X(t ), t) , (22) x

where X( t ) = [ x 1 ( t ), " , x n ( t )]T , f (X( t )) is the nominal system dynamics, g(X(t ), t ) C1 is the system uncertainties and external disturbances, b is the nominal control gain, b(X( t ), t ) C1 is its variation and b > b ( X ( t ), t ) for the need of stability, and u(t) is the control effort. To simplify the equations, we separate the control effort into three parts, respectively; the first one is designed to cancel out the nominal system dynamics, the second one is designed to predict control effort and thus forcing the states toward and along the desired control action, the last one is designed to estimate and alleviate the effects of the perturbations. Therefore, (23) can be rewritten as the form:
 1 (t) = x 2 (t) , x

Ta = G ear
and

 , T + I a G ear

(17)

Ta = D U ,

(18)

in which Ta is a px1 vector of actuators input torque, Gear = diag [ g 1 ,g 2 ," ,g p ] is a pxp diagonal matrix of gear ratio, Ia = diag [ I a1 , I a2 ," , I ap ] is a pxp diagonal matrix of actuators inertia, D = diag [ d 1 , d 2 ," , d p ] is a pxp diagonal matrix of input gains for voltage to torque, and U is a px1 vector of input voltage commands for actuators. Combining (15), (16), (17), and (18), the dynamic equations are written as follows:

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 2 (t ) = x 3 (t ) , x

Combining (33) and (34),

b u pr ( t ) h + [ b u es ( t ) + b(X( t ), t ) u ( t ) + g(X( t ), t )] h

 n (t) = b u pr (t) + [b u es (t) + b(X(t), t) u(t) + g(X(t), t)] (24) x

with
u 0 (t ) = f (X( t )) b

= - ci [ xi (t ) + h xi+1 (t )] - xn (t )
i=1

n-1

(35)

(25)

Then we can separate (35) as

u pr ( t ) = - { c i [ x i ( t ) + h x i +1 ( t )] + x n ( t )}/( b h )
i =1 n -1

(36)

By Taylor's formula, after one sampling interval h, we have the approximated relation:
i (t ) + xi (t + h) = xi (t ) + h x h h i (t ) + " +  x xi( m ) (t ) + " 2 m! (26)
2 m

and
[ b u es ( t ) + b ( X ( t ), t ) u ( t ) + g ( X ( t ), t )] h = 0

(37)

From manifold deformation analysis, we can find that

[b u es (t h) + b(X(t - h), t h) u(t h) + g(X(t h), t h)] h
* = xn (t ) - xn (t )

where i=1, ..., n. The sampling interval is assumed to be small enough such that the second and higher order effect can be neglected, thus (26) can be further approximated as:
i (t ) xi ( t + h ) = xi ( t ) + h x

(38)

(27)

Combining (37) and (38), and from manifold deformation analysis, we can obtain and ues(0)=0 (39) u es ( t ) = u es ( t - h ) - [ x n ( t ) - x * n ( t )]/(b h ) Therefore, the overall control effort has the form:
u (t ) = f (X(t )) n -1 { c i [x i ( t ) + h x i +1 ( t )] + x n ( t )}/(b h) + u es ( t ) b i =1

From (22) and (27), we can obtain the approximated dynamic equations,

xi (t + h) = xi (t ) + h xi +1 (t ) , i=1, ..., n-1. and

x n ( t + h ) = x n ( t ) + h {b u pr ( t )

+ [ b u es ( t ) + b(X ( t ), t ) u ( t ) + g (X ( t ), t )]} (28)

Now, we assign a desired manifold and the control objective is to make states attracted and maintained on it. The desired manifold is set as follows: (29) = ( s 1 )( s - 2 )"( s n- 1 ) x 1 where s represents a Laplacian operator and i is the eigenvalue with negative real part, i = 1, 2, ..., n-1. It also can be written as:

and and ues (0) = 0 (40) u es (t ) = u es (t - h) - [x n (t ) - x * n ( t )]/(b h )

Due to practical constraint, the control efforts must be bounded (worst case) and the sampling interval is not zero, so ill condition will never happen.

5. SIMULATION AND VALIDAION

(30)

= xn + ci xi
i =1

n-1

where

ci can be obtained from (29).

X (t ) = [ x 1 (t ), x 2 (t ), " , x n (t )]T

For validation, a delta robot controlled by a robust control scheme, manifold deformation scheme, is simulated as below. The block diagram of the controlled system is shown in Fig. 4.

For some time t, if we know the state being: (31)

After one sampling interval h, the state can be predicted as follows:

T X* (t + h ) = [x1 (t ) + h x 2 (t ), x 2 (t ) + h x 3 (t ), ", x * n ( t + h )]

Fig.4. The block diagram of the controlled system The geometric parameters of the delta robot are set as Lr =73.1956 (mm), Lh =38 (mm), La =203.422 (mm),

(32) where
x n (t + h) = x n ( t ) + b u pr (t ) h
*

Lb =410.5 (mm), i = 0, 120, 240, and the model of

the actuator is set as

+ [ b u es ( t ) + b(X ( t ), t ) u ( t ) + g(X ( t ), t )] h (33)

Similarly, from the desired manifold, we also can get:

1 = x2 x
 2 = x 2 156 u x

x* n (t + h) = - ci [ xi (t ) + h xi+1 (t )]
i=1

n -1

(34)

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And the initial conditions of the end-effector is set to be = [0 0 350]T (mm), the control effort is limited to be10 (volt), the hyperplane parameters c1 is set to be 20 for each axis, the target point is t = [10 20 400]T , and the sampling interval h = 0.001 (sec), then we can get the simulation results shown in Fig. 5, Fig. 6 and Fig. 7.

Fig.7. The controlled trajectories in phase planes After simulation, we can find that manifold deformation scheme can provide excellent performance and the same convergent behavior for the delta robot.

6. CONCLUSIONS
By observing the simulation results, some attractive features for the proposed control system of a delta robot are listed as follows: (a) The control algorithm is applied in a delta robot successfully. (b) The proposed scheme can provide the characteristics of smooth robustness and simultaneous convergence to avoid the chatter induced by different time constant. (c) The primary achievements will be helpful for the progress in further researches.

REFERENCES
Fig.5. The simulation results [1] Stamper, R. E., A Three Degree of Freedom Parallel Manipulator with Only Translational Degrees of Freedom, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 1997. [2] Chao-Shu Liu and Chao-Chung Liu, "A Manifold Deformation Design Scheme for the Controls of Nonlinear Systems, " SICE Annual Conference 2010, pp. 3325-3331, The Grand Hotel, Taipei, August 18-21, 2010. [3] Lee, John M, Introduction to Topological Manifolds, Springer-Verlag, 2000. [4] M Lopez, E Castillo, G Garcia, and A Bashir, Delta Robot: Inverse, Direct, and Intermediate Jacobians, Proc. ImechE, Part S: J. Mechanical Engineering Science, vol.220, pp. 103-109, 2006 [5] Wisama Khalil, Ouarda Ibrahim, General Solution for the Dynamic Modeling of Parallel Robots, J. Intell Robot Syst, vol. 49, pp. 19-37, 2007. [6] Staicu St. and Carp-Cipcardia D. C. , Dynamic Analysis of Clavels Delta Parallel Robot, Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 4116-4121, Taipei, Taiwan, September 14-19, 2003. [7] Vincent NABAT, Oliver COMPANY, Francois PIERROT and Philippe POIGNET, Dynamic Modeling and Identification of Par 4, A Very High Speed Parallel Manipulator, Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 496-501, October 9-15, Beijing, China, 2006.

Fig.6. The control efforts of the simulation

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