NTNU Faculty of Information technology, Norwegian University of Mathematics and Electrical Engineering Science and Technology Department of Engineering Cybernetics
Project Assignment
Student’s name:
Field: Engineering Cybernetics
Title (Norwegian):
Title (English): Hybrid position/force control for perception-driven obstacle-aided locomotion: integration with the Mamba robot
Description: Snake robots equipped with sensors and tools could potentially contribute to applications such as fire- fighting, industrial inspection, search-and-rescue and more. Such capabilities would require that a snake robot has a high degree of awareness of its surroundings and is able to exploit objects and irregularities in its environment to gain propulsion.
The term perception-driven obstacle-aided locomotion may be adopted to define locomotion where the snake robot utilises a sensory-perceptual system to exploit the surrounding operational space and identifies walls, obstacles or other external objects, for means of propulsion. SINTEF and NTNU have already produced some initial results within this area and have ongoing projects to further develop snake robot capabilities.
Our research group is developing a simplified snake robot model to deal with a lower-dimensional system that allows for establishing the foundation elements of perception-driven obstacle-aided locomotion. In particular, the obstacle triplet model was recently proposed (with 3 simultaneous push-points at alternating sites of the path). Inspired by the concept of hybrid position/force control of manipulators, a novel control approach is being developed. This method contributes towards the preliminary stage for realising perception-driven obstacle-aided locomotion for snake robots.
To give researchers the possibility of testing different control algorithms for perception-driven obstacle-aided locomotion in a realistic laboratory setup, a basic simulation framework is under development. This framework is based on the use of the Gazebo 3D simulator and the Robot Operating System (ROS). Gazebo is used to simulate the robot operational scenario, while ROS serves as the interface for the robot. At the current stage of development, the basic framework includes: a simulated operational scenario which replicates the obstacle triplet model; a simple model of a snake robot which is equipped with joint actuators and a stereo camera mounted on the head module; a communication interface between ROS and Gazebo which allows for controlling the joints, receiving sensor information feedback such as effort and control error and visualising the perception feedback; a user interface developed through a 3D visualization tool for ROS, namely the RViz package, which allows for visualising real-time data of the underlying simulation.
In this project, the following improvements should be considered: collect the necessary sensor data from the real robot; integration with the real robot; produce different plots and graphs to validate the proposed control method with experimental results.
Co-supervisor(s): Filippo Sanfilippo, NTNU
Trondheim, 21th April 2017
Øyvind Stavdahl Supervisor
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