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A fast pick-and-place prototype robot: design and control

Conference Paper · September 2016

DOI: 10.1109/CCA.2016.7588005

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 A fast pick-and-place prototype robot: design and control
C.S. Teodorescu1 , S. Vandenplas1 , B. Depraetere1 , J. Anthonis2 , A. Steinhauser3 and J. Swevers3

Abstract— This article focuses on a newly built research

platform (a robot). Using its vision system, it can identify round
objects that are randomly scattered on a table. Then, using its
gripper they are picked and placed inside a basket. The control
system is tuned such that, the succession of operations runs fast
and safe. In this paper we present how this has been achieved:
going from concepts to design, validation in simulation and
eventually experimental validation. Lessons learned can save
time for other parties interested in building prototype robots.

I. INTRODUCTION
Based on previous experience [1], at Flanders Make (Bel-
gium), we have recently built a prototype robot that can
execute fast pick-and-place operations (see Fig. 1a). It is
an open research platform intended to be used for testing
advanced control, vision and gripper techniques. This knowl- (a) photo
edge is valuable for companies interested in manufacturing
commercial robots, specifically during prototyping phase. 𝛽
These robots can be used in agriculture as well as industry,
with better capabilities than human operators.
Description of the Experimental Setup
The overall experimental setup was intended to be modular
allowing easiness in replacing each sub-assembly. From a 𝛾
high level overview, it can be divided into:
• robot arm (see Fig. 1a): it has 4 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) 𝛼
𝑧0b
permitting: (i) rotation about an horizontal axis, such that
the arm can execute up-down movement with an angle
α; (ii) rotation of the entire arm about a vertical axis,
with an angle β ; (iii) translation along a linear unit, with (b) CAD drawings with joint variables
distance z0b ; (iv) rotation of the gripper 360◦ , with angle
Fig. 1: The 4-DOF operational robot, able to execute fast
γ. Specifically its gripper is able to pick round objects of
pick-and-place of round objects.
a few centimeters in diameter. In the future, we intend
replacing it with another gripper capable of handling long
regular objects (e.g., cylinder, rectangular box).
• vision system: it consists of: (i) two cameras that are fixed System). It hosts the post-processing software, dealing with
on a rigid frame attached to the ground; they are intended recognition and localization of objects.
to be used for rough localization of objects; (ii) one camera • control system: it consists of: (i) one interface laptop PC
attached on the gripper (see Fig. 1a); it is intended to be running Simulink. It is used for online monitoring and
used for precise recognition of objects; (iii) one dedicated to generate code for (ii) one dedicated Triphase real-time
industrial PC running Ubuntu with ROS (Robot Operating target attached to numerous Beckhoff I/O terminals. The
1 C.S. Teodorescu, S. Vandenplas and B. Depraetere are with latter send out and receive signals to control the motors,
Flanders Make, Celestijnenlaan 300, bus 4027, B-3001 Heverlee, as well as safety.
Belgium {stefan.teodorescu, steve.vandenplas, • safety system: multiple measures have been taken in order
bruno.depraetere}@flandersmake.be to (i) protect the people, as well as to (ii) protect the robot.
2 J. Anthonis is with Octinion, Romeinsestraat 18, B-3001 Heverlee,
Belgium janthonis@octinion.com In Fig. 2 one can see that the robot is placed inside a cage.
3 A. Steinhauser and J. Swevers are with Division of Production, It consists of a reasonably high fence and a door with
Machine Design and Automation (PMA), Department of Mechanical an Euchner MGB locking device mounted on it. During
Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan
300B, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium {armin.steinhauser, operation mode, access inside the cage is forbidden by
jan.swevers}@kuleuven.be keeping the door locked. To unlock it, there are two ways:
 (i) by pushing the emergency stop button, which simulta-
neously cuts off power to motors, or
(ii) by pushing a blue button: it has the meaning of
requesting permission to go in. Only when the robot
has a safe attitude, e.g. at standstill, will the door be
allowed to unlock. In this situation, motors operation is
only disabled via software, instead of physically cutting
off power as previously.
Fig. 2: Safety fence and door lock with emergency stop
button.
Other safety-related hardware actions include a lamp with
multiple colors indicating the operational status of the
robot (green, orange, red); various shock absorbers (see
Fig. 1a): (i) spring-damper systems positioned at the two
ends of the linear unit, (ii) deforming metal sheet for
the rotation β . Software actions include bypassing control
decisions that might endanger the robot, and using instead
a safe fallback control.
The paper is organized as follows: section II focuses on
dynamic modeling, followed by control design and results in
section III. The paper ends with conclusions in section IV.
II. D IMENSIONING MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL
COMPONENTS
A. Nominal parameters
Advanced mechanical design CAD tools1 are quite valu-
able for multiple reasons. On the one hand they allow 3D
visualization of the final product (see Fig. 1b), assembled
using custom-made parts (some of these components will be
laser printed, increasing the total price of the setup) as well
as off-the-shelf ones. On the other hand, the CAD software
is able to compute (estimate) quite accurately physical quan-
tities associated to robot links, like the mass, position of the
center of mass, inertia tensor matrix.
The datasheets publicly available on manufacturers’ web-
site provide other parameters like: (i) rotor inertia, torque
constant for motors; (ii) gear ratio, mass moment of iner-
tia for gearboxes; (iii) mass of carriage, conversion factor
between rotation and translation for linear units.
All these form the nominal parameters and are necessary
for building a dynamical model which finds its utility in:
1 we have used Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015
• dimensioning of electric motors: this topic will be ad-
dressed later on in section II-C.
• advanced feedforward model-based control: see later on,
section III-E.
B. Dynamical model
For the reasons that will be mentioned earlier, it is impor-
tant to have a dynamical model available that is sufficiently
representative of physical phenomena. To achieve this, we
have used two approaches developed in parallel. Each one
of them has its advantages as well as drawbacks, summarized
in table I.
The first approach was to calculate a simplified dynamical
model using the textbook [2, §7]. From the Euler-Lagrange
equations of motion adding also nonconservative torques, we
derived the following nonlinear system of coupled differen-
tial equations:
M(q)q̈ + (C(q, q̇) + Bd ) q̇ + τC (q̇) + g(q) + τs (q) = R τm (1)
or equivalently, using the linearity in the parameters property
[2, §7.5.3]:
Y (q, q̇, q̈)θ = R τm (2)
where
• q, q̇, q̈ are vectors of dimension n representing joint
position, velocity and acceleration, respectively; q =
(z0b α β γ) is constructed using Denavit-Hartenberg
convention [2, §3];
• M(q) represents inertia matrix;
• C(q, q̇) accounts for the Coriolis and centrifugal forces
contributions;
• Bd is a diagonal constant matrix of the cumulated viscous
damping between motors and links;
• τC (q̇) is the Coulomb friction torque vector
• g(q) accounts for the gravity forces vector;
• τs (q) stands for the spring effect acting only on α-DOF;
this spring is visible in Fig. 1a, positioned on the diagonal
of the parallelogram frame;
• R is a diagonal positive matrix of cumulated gear ratios.
These gears are situated between motors and links and used
for torque amplification and speed reduction;
• τm is the vector of motor torques;
• Y (q, q̇, q̈) is the regressor matrix;
• θ is the parameter vector consisting of products and/or
sums of physical parameters
In our previous work [3, Appendix II] we have provided
details on the content of aforementionned vectors, matrices,
for a 2-DOF, 2-link robot. Actually that was a simplified
version of our current 4-DOF robot, where the β and γ-DOF
are fixed once and for all.
The second approach was to use a multibody software.
Instead of opting for commercial products (e.g., MapleSim),
we were mainly interested in open source alternatives. After
careful selection we decided to use Robotran [4]. Using a
high-level interface, the user can easily specify the properties
of links and joints, and the software automatically generates
the dynamical model. An interesting feature is that in the end, 50
200 0.4
the user has access to readily implementable code (Matlab, 40
180
0.3
Phyton but also C/C++). It is based on ODEs after applying 30
160
successive transformations on top of (1). Its main drawbacks 0.2

speed β−motor [rad/s]

140

Power β−motor [W]

20

torque β−motor [Nm]

include: (i) equations are not readily available in symbolic 0.1
120
10
form (1)–(2), which is important for advanced control design 0
100
[2, §8]; (ii) experimental parameter identification is currently 0
80 −0.1
not available; this makes it highly reliable on nominal −10
60
−0.2
parameters. 40
−20
−0.3
20 −30
Manual Multibody −0.4
Criteria textbook software 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
−40
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
based (Robotran) Normalized time [−] Normalized time [−]
man effort to obtain the final
weeks days
equations Fig. 3: Dimensioning of β -motor: speed, torque and power
representativeness with respect to
physical phenomena
fair higher curves.
numerical model complexity more
fair (60;
(number of physical parameters; involved
4 × 4)
matrix size) (120; 7 × 7)
fairly
that can withstand the relatively high peak torque of 0.4 Nm.
usage for code generation easy Therefore, we opted for a Maxon EC series brushless motor
accessible
straightforward usage for: rated 250 Watt that can provide the required torque.
(i) dimensioning electric motors;
yes yes
(ii) feedforward model-based D. Experimental identification of robot parameters
control
experimental lumped parameter
yes n/a A key element of (2) is that it relies on physical nominal
identification (2) parameters: the more accurate they can be identified, the
TABLE I: Comparison between two approaches used to more reliable the plant nominal model. As we have explained
obtain a 4-DOF, 6-link, rigid body dynamical model. in section II-A, nominal parameters are issued by CAD
drawings and datasheets. However, there are other aspects
that are not being taken into account by CAD drawings, nor
C. Dimensioning motors by datasheets. For example: (i) friction characteristics; (ii) ca-
Motors should be powerful enough so that the robot can bles are often not included in CAD drawings; especially for
execute reliably the desired operation. In order to calculate lightweight components, their effect might be considerable.
their characteristics, we have used the nominal plant model Therefore, experimental identification is needed in order
of section II-B with the nominal parameters of section II-A to mitigate slight differences that might persist with respect
and the following methodology. to reality.
The first step is to pre-define a typical pick-and-place mo- A first approach would be to take each link of the robot one
tion for this robot. It should be executed in short time (about by one and experimentally identify its mass, center of mass,
1.5 seconds) with the gripper holding quite a heavy object of inertia matrix. This requires dedicated measuring equipment
2 kg: it is required to move between two extreme positions of and personnel capable of mounting and dismounting the
its workspace, situated approximately 2 meters apart. Next, robot. Moreover, when this is performed, it is not always
smooth trajectories q will be pre-defined, together with their possible to correctly take into account the effect of cables
successive higher order derivatives q̇ and q̈. Finally, (1) or and to obtain realistic values for friction parameters e.g.,
(2) are used to calculate motor torques τm . due to coupling effects.
Typically we obtain curves like the one in Fig. 3, for each To overcome these drawbacks, an alternative solution
axis. Next, the selection of motors is done by checking and is proposed in [5], [6]: estimate θ from (2) by fitting a
making sure that these curves comply with motor character- set of experimentally measured data. To do so, we will
istics (taken from datasheets). The most important ones are simultaneously measure quantities q(t), q̇(t), q̈(t) as well
nominal and peak values of the speed, torque and power. as τm (t). For each time instant t, a linear system (2) can
Peak torques may never exceed the maximum reachable be formed. For multiple time instants t an augmented linear
torque, otherwise the trajectories can never be executed. system can be formed and solved using a linear least squares
When the nominal motor speeds are exceeded, the torque of estimation method. The approach taken here was focused on
the motor is reduced below its nominal value. On the other getting a dataset which could be used to efficiently identify
hand, average torque and power are important for estimating the parameters in this model. This means we try to find data
the heating up of the motor. All these considerations need such that the matrix Y (q, q̇, q̈) is well conditioned (such that
to be taken into account during the selection process of the an identification can be done based on a small amount of data
motors. yet still with a high confidence on the estimates, or such that
In particular, the peak power in Fig. 3 suggests a motor for a given test duration the identification can be performed
of 50 Watt would be enough, however we did not find one resulting in as much confidence as possible). Next to this, we
also want to avoid collisions during the data collection (with
the robot not hitting itself nor its environment), and we want
to record data by having the robot move in a manner that is
close to the normal operating regimes (big sweeping motions,
such as shown in Fig. 4). The data is measured in closed-
Fig. 4: End-effector trajectory avoiding collisions with rect-
angular boxes sitting on the floor. Colors illustrate speeds
associated to specific positions.
loop with simple PID independent axis control active, which
tracks a reference qref (t). This reference will be optimized
beforehand by taking into account the considerations above
(see results in Fig. 5). The optimization will look for the
amplitudes and frequencies of a sum of sines and cosines (i.e.
a multi-sine excitation signal), such that their sum maximizes
the condition number of the matrix Y (qref , q̇ref , q̈ref ), respects
constraints on the allowable movement speeds, avoids colli-
sions and promotes big sweeping motions.
−0.5
−1
βref(t) [rad]
−1.5
−2
−2.5
0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [s]
Fig. 5: Sample β ref (t) solution of a nonlinear optimization
problem with physical constraints.
The numerical optimization is run using the free OPTI
toolbox [7].
E. Dynamic friction compensation: an attempt
In our early tests we had some difficulties controlling the
linear z0b -axis, which were assumed to be due to friction.
Our first reaction was that static friction models used in (1),
namely Coulomb and viscous friction, were not sufficient,
so we looked into the literature for dynamic friction models.
Among them, the Bliman-Sorine model [8] has the same
linearity in the parameters property which is valuable in
robotics for facilitating experimental model identification.
This was quite interesting for us, since it would have
permitted easy extension of Euler-Lagrange model (1)–(2).
Consequently, the experimental procedure from section II-D
would have allowed to identify the physical parameters.
A second dynamic friction model that we have investigated
was LuGre. Unfortunately it does not have the linearity in the
parameters property. A comparison between the two models
is given in [9].
In the end, we have abandoned further investigation in
this direction: both Bliman-Sorine and LuGre models exhibit
mathematical artifacts that are not physical, like undesired:
(i) oscillations; (ii) behavior during transitory phase that
is not according to specified tuning parameters. For more
details on this topic, see [9].
III. C ONTROL
In this section we are interested in a control design capable
of executing fast pick-and-place operations. Imposing high
performance will consequently mean that motors run towards
their saturation limit.
At Flanders Make we have a running demo with the
robot, which consists of picking objects (yellow balls) that
are randomly positioned on a table and placing them inside
a basket. The functional diagram of Fig. 6 illustrates the
control system architecture, detailed next.
Vision system Feedforward Control
Nominal
Plant
Model
(𝑥c , 𝑦c , 𝑧c )
𝑞 ref (𝑡)
Trajectory
𝑞ሶ ref (𝑡)
Feedback Control ref
𝜏m Real
𝑞ሷ ref (𝑡)
planning + Plant
𝑞, 𝑞ሶ
Fig. 6: Schematic diagram of the closed-loop control system.
The vision system is used to compute the position
(xc , yc , zc ) of each randomly distributed object. This informa-
tion will be used by trajectory planning, which will calculate
a reference path qref (t) from the robot’s current position
towards grabbing each of these objects and then placing
them inside a basket; qref (t) together with its successive
higher order derivatives q̇ref (t) and q̈ref (t) are used by the
control system: here we propose to use a combination of
feedforward and feedback control. The former is used for
high performance while the latter is used for robustness.
Finally, the computed reference torque τmref (t) is sent to
the real plant, and more precisely to the low level torque
controller situated inside the servo-drive of each motor. Next,
each block of Fig. 6 will be analyzed in further detail.
A. Vision system
In a 3D environment, the vision system computes positions
of objects using stereo vision, intersecting epipolar lines. In
our case all objects are round, of identical color (yellow) and
size, situated quite far away from the two cameras. What the
cameras see, on their 2D digital camera images are clouds
of neighbor yellow points. We apply a monochrome mask
where black region corresponds to an identified object while
white region represents anything else. It is interesting to
note that by using these monochrome masks from the two
cameras, it is not always possible to identify the (xc , yc , zc )
positions of objects, without extra assumptions or knowledge
about the environment. One of these scenarios is presented
in Fig. 7 and analyzed next.
Fig. 7 presents two situations where the environment
is quite different, although cameras see the same thing:
by re-positioning the yellow objects to new locations, the
digital image of camera1 remains unchanged from Fig. 7a to
Fig. 7b; the same holds for camera2. In other words, just by
using information from the monochrome masks one cannot
distinguish what is the reality. Extra a priori knowledge
on the environment is needed, in order to tell which of
the two situations occur. Consequently the recognition and
localization algorithm will be able to match correctly, e.g. if
the left object from image camera1 corresponds to the left
object from image camera2, or to the right object.
In our case, the extra information is that all yellow objects
lie on a table, so the zc -axis coordinate is known in advance.
𝑦c
𝑥c
𝑜𝑐1 𝑜𝑐2
(a) situation1 for placing objects
𝑦c
𝑥c
𝑜𝑐1 𝑜𝑐2
(b) situation2 for placing objects
Fig. 7: Stereo vision: Example where the algorithm of inter-
secting epipolar lines will fail to distinguish two different
situations and consequently calculate positions of yellow
objects. Here we used pinhole lens model: the origins oc1 and
oc2 of the camera coordinates are at the center of projection
[2, §11].
B. Change of coordinate frames
For one object sitting on robot’s table, the vision system
yields the position vector Pc = (xc , yc , zc , 1) expressed in the
camera coordinate frame. In this section we are interested in
converting Pc into P0 = (x0 , y0 , z0 , 1) expressed with respect
to robot inertial frame. The relation between the two is
P0 = Hc0 Pc (3)
This information together with the inverse kinematics solu-
tion is used for trajectory planning (see later on).
A few reasons motivate us in seeking for an automatic
procedure for the experimental identification of the transfor-
mation matrix Hc0 :
• the robot architecture was intended to be modular. In the
future, we might have to test new vision systems that
are delivered to us as black box, without any a priori
information on their calibration parameters;
• in the future, the robot might need to be moved to another
lab.
Therefore, we have installed the yellow led illustrated in
Fig 8 and request the robot to execute random movements.
The recorded positions (P0 , Pc ) help us identify Hc0 by using
(3). Only 4 measurements are enough to form a system of
linear equations, since only 12 elements of matrix Hc0 are
unknown, while the rest are known [2, §2.7], [10, §2.7]. How-
ever in practice, due to noise and uncertainty, the identified
values lack accuracy as depicted in Fig. 9: we have used 10
randomly measured points, then formed 210 combinations
of linear system equations, each solution being depicted by
a green circle. The red circle illustrates the average value
and in blue we have depicted the standard deviation. The
Fig. 8: Led.
conclusion is that randomly positioning the robot was not a
good idea. Probably, better ideas include pre-defining points
in the workspace of the robot, such that when stacking them
together to form 3 by 3 matrices, their determinant is as big
as possible, or alternatively the condition number is as small
as possible.
C. Trajectory planning
Once the positions of the identified objects that need to
be picked are transformed from the camera frame into robot
 5 and provide efficient means to control a wide range of
4 applications.
3 Experimental results show that simple PID control with
2
anti-windup and static friction compensation works quite
1
well for this robot. For tuning purpose, one can recall the
0
analogy with mechanical systems: the P term acts as a virtual
spring, while the D term acts as a damper between desired
−1
and current position.
−2
A straightforward trial-and-error tuning procedure is pre-
−3
sented hereafter. Use a step reference. Start first by adjusting
−4
h(1,1) h(1,2) h(1,3) h(1,4) h(2,1) h(2,2) h(2,3) h(2,4) h(3,1) h(3,2) h(3,3) h(3,4) the P gain, while keeping the I and D gains to zero. Gradually
increase its value until a satisfactory P gain candidate is
Fig. 9: Experimental identification of elements h(i, j) of the found. Now observe the high frequency oscillations around
transformation matrix Hc0 ; i and j correspond to rows and the desired reference. Gradually increase the D gain in order
columns, respectively. In green: identified values; in red: to mitigate these oscillations: the D action is mostly visible
average value; in blue: standard deviation. at high speeds, while negligible at low speeds. A PD control
with high gains is preferable for:
• achieving fast performance
inertial frame, the solution of the inverse kinematics problem • avoiding systematic overshoot: this situation is particularly
can be used to generate time-dependent reference trajectories dangerous at the boundaries of robot’s workspace where
the robot might hit hardware protection systems.
qref (t) = zref ref ref ref


0b (t), α (t), β (t), γ (t)
See results in Fig. 11.
Actually, multiple grabbing positions are possible for some
objects situated on the table.
Smooth point to point trajectories are generated over a 1

finite time horizon: they start from the current position of 0.5
Normalized

βref
position

robot arm and end into the basket. Here, two approaches have 0 β
been studied: using quintic polynomials [3, §IV] and proxi-
−0.5
mate time-optimal servo [11]. The latter has the theoretical
advantage of using the analytic solution of an optimization −1
0 5 10 15 20
problem.
1
In order to validate results in simulation, a virtual environ- τref
m,β
ment has been developed (see Fig. 10). It allows visualization 0.5
Normalized

of robot movement before actually implementing it on the

torque

0
experimental platform.
−0.5
Robot represented in inertial frame
(Denavit−Hartenberg convention) −1
0 5 10 15 20
Time [s]

0.6
Fig. 11: Experimental results using PD control for β -axis.
0.5 z0−axis Normalized value of 1 corresponds to maximum allowed:
0.4 x0−axis
(i) position in the upper figure; (ii) torque in the lower figure.
y0−axis

y0−axis
0.3
prismatic joint
0.2 revolute joint
rigid link Next, the control designer should decide whether to use
0.1 gripper
the I action. It is useful for reducing static error, however at
0
−0.2
the cost of systematic overshoot due to its memory effect.
0
0
0.2
−0.2 To tune it, the I gain is gradually increased making sure
−0.4
0.4 the overshoot is within satisfactory performance. The anti-
x0−axis
z0−axis windup is a must as soon as motors are pushed towards their
maximum capacity, in order to avoid integrator windup (see
Fig. 10: Virtual environment used to test trajectory planning.
[12, §3.5]).
(x0 , y0 , z0 ) represents robot’s inertial frame.
To overcome Coulomb friction effects, notably at higher
speeds, we appended in series the block depicted in Fig. 12.
D. Feedback control Especially, it was necessary for controlling the z0b -axis.
Non-model-based control techniques are often the result It was interesting for us to note that aforementioned PID
of human operator intuition. They are easy to understand control performed quite well. The main reasons were that:
 0.15
0.1
Normalized output [−]
0.05
0 simple feedback parallel action, namely the PID independent
−0.05
−0.1
−0.1 −0.08 −0.06 −0.04 −0.02
Normalized input [−]
Fig. 12: Coulomb friction compensation, smoothed around
the origin. Normalized value of 1 corresponds to maximum
motor torque.
• some axes motions were sufficiently decoupled: e.g., the
up-down α-motion has negligible effect on the left-right
β -motion as well as on the z0b linear translation;
• on the other axes where coupling effect was non-
negligible, the existing powerful motors tuned with high
gains, ensured efficient attenuation of the coupling ef-
fect: e.g., z0b linear translation will consequently generate
movement on β ;
• robot is quite sturdy, built with rigid links.
A few reasons might motivate the usage of advanced
control, where PID are known to perform poorly:
• when robot is mechanically built using lighter materials,
links become flexible and can therefore vibrate;
• when total price of the robot is downsized by a factor
5: by downsizing motors and/or replacing current expen-
sive mechanical sub-assemblies with low-cost ones, new
control challenges appear: e.g. gearboxes with significant
backlash. In general, it is still an open question nowadays
how to design robots that exhibit high performance while
still being cheap.
With these ideas in mind, we address next, the topic of
advanced feedforward control.
E. Feedforward control
Model-based control techniques offer a certain number of
advantages including:
• accounting for coupling effects between axes;
• achieve higher precision.
In particular, the flatness-based approach [13, §6.2.2] con-
sists of inverting the nominal plant model (2): given a priori
desired trajectories qref (t) together with their higher order
derivatives q̇ref (t) and q̈ref (t), the reference control torques
are calculated accordingly:
τmref (t) = R−1Y (qref (t), q̇ref (t), q̈ref (t))θ
where matrix R is always invertible (see section II-B).
A feature that makes this control particularly interesting is
the simplified tuning procedure. Actually, tuning parameters
are physical quantities: e.g. if we know beforehand that the
gripper is going to handle an object of 1 kg, then we need
to update accordingly one parameter, corresponding to this
mass.
This feedforward control block is not intended to work
alone. Due to slight mismatch between the nominal plant
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model used for feedback control and the real plant, there will
be a minor offset in the tracking error. To correct it, use the
axis control presented in section III-D.
An alternative to this combined feedback and feedforward
0 0.02
0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 control approach is the robust optimal nonlinear control [3].
To understand it, mechanical concepts like (1) are no longer
enough, making people that are not familiar enough with
Lyapunov theory uneasy. A reaction and criticism we got
from industry was that it is too mathematically involved, to
the level of loosing physical insight. For this reason, this
direction has not been pursued.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we presented the succession of steps that
we followed in order to make available a robotic research
platform. Methodology to design, build, control and commis-
sion prototype robots is valuable for companies interested in
producing them: we presented the selected tools (including
software) and focused on lessons learned. Consequently, we
believe the value of this paper is that it might be used as a
guideline for companies, as well as academia interested in
developing their own prototypes faster.
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