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Remote Control of a Semi-Autonomous Robot Vehicle Over a Time-Delayed Link

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Remote Control of a Semi-Autonomous Robot Vehicle Over a Time-Delayed Link REMOTE CONTROL OF A SEMI-AUTONOMOUS ROBOT VEHICLE OVER A TIME-DELAYED LINK A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Electrical Engineering University of Saskatchewan MAYNARD R OLSON Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada FaIl 2001 National Libraiy Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et ûibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 WeEinglon SItwt 395. rue Wellington -ON K1AW Ottawa ON K1A ON4 CaMda CaMda The author has graated a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence aüowiag the exclusive pemettant à la National Li'brary of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seii reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats, Ia forme de micro fi ch el^ de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantieIs may be printed or othem'se de ceiie-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou auirement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. PERMISSION TO USE The auttior has lgntd that the libraries of the University of Saskatchewan may make this thwis fialy available for inspection. Morwverpthe author has agreed that permission for extensive cwngof this thesis for scholarly purpose may be gMted by the professor or proftssors who supuvised the thesis work ttcotded hemn or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dtan of the College in which the thesis work was done. It is unâastood that due rceogniîiort dlbe given to the author of this thesis and to the University of Saskatchewan in aay use of the materiai in this thesis. Copying or publication or any atba use of the thesis f'or financial gain *out approval by the University of Sadumhmm ad the utk'swntten permission is prohibited. Request for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or in part should be addressai to: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to sincerely hnkbis supavisor, Dr. H.C. Wood for his assistance and guidance through the variwg challenging situations during the devclopmcnt and hai prepatotion of this thesis. The author dso wishes to thank his advisory cornmittee mcmbers, Dr. MM Gupta, Dr. G.J. Schanau and Dr. K. Takaya for th& thought-pmvoking questions and duablc comments which have bad signifiant impact on the final form of this thesis. The author would ab like to acbwledgc the many helpfiil meetings with Mr. T. J. Nelson of Prairie Machine and Parts, Ltd. which were instrumental in fonnulating the design of the system used in this his. Financial support pmvided by NSERC, Cinadian Space Agency and Prairie Machine and Parts, Ltd. of Saslcaoon W most gmtehlly rcknowldged and appreciated, as is the bancial support fhm the thuis supavisor, Dr. &C. Wood. Remote control of equipmem or systems over communication links baving loop time delays of about 0.5 seconds or more is knom to be a significant problem for a human opcrator in teleoperation mode. "Move and wait " stratcgy is the nod approach employed by an operator. In order to improve upon the inefficiency of this strategy, a number of solutions can be employed, including wc of predictor displayq supeMsory control and Smith wntrol. A pndictor display aids the operator by presenting a non-delayed view of the remote system output. ïhis allows commands to be issued before the actual delayed output is rcceived via feedback. Supervisory control allows the remote system to operete in semi-autonornous fashion by providing autonomous capability that can be directeci by the opemitor using high-bel commanda Smith wntrol provides stable, closeci-loop control of systems with inherent delay by effectively moving the delay out of the loop. This thesis preseiits a robot vehicle wnîrol system that includes each of these techniques in the overall design. The robot vehicle king contro11ed is intendcd for underground Mning applications. This is a ditIicuit environment hra control system, particulsrly when autonomous operotion is nquind. Movemtnt of a vehicle in such an uncondmd environment coupled with the problem of senaor regdings suggests an excellent application for tiiay control. Remotc conüol of a robot vehicle bssically involves wntrol of spad and stating. A muhivariable, fbqcontrol system bas been developed to accommodate this task A simplified version of Smith control is used to compensate not only for the tirne delay but also for tbe human operator's dynamics. This simplified method dasnot requin the uJual estimate of non-delaycd plant dynamicq oniy a reasonably accurate rneasurc ofthe loop time delay. Semi- autonomous operation provided includes automatic tunnel-traclring and turning into intdngtunnels. Obstaclc-avoidancc, bascd on the we of fuzzy "obstacle firctors" forms an essential part of the control system, A neural nenv~rk-basedpdctor W also included for the operator's assistancestance System simulation results prow tbst the simplüied Smith control ir#thad can compensate for both the time delay and the human opaator's dynamics to 8 ver'high degnc. Given a stable lincar plant with no dishrrbrnccs, the lcngth of the time dday is essentially irrelevant in maintainhg stable wntrol. ïî is also demonsbated that the predictor allows the operator to control the runote vehicle over the tirne delay by driving a non-delayeci mode1 ofthe vehicle on a console dispiay. Semi-autonomous operation bas not becn tdin animated simulation in a mine environment, but preliminary simulaiions of obstacleavoidmce, automatic tunnel-tracking and automatic intersection-hirning have indicated that the design appears d. TABLE OF CONTENTS PERMISSION TO USE TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES 1. ilWRODUCI'ION 1.1 General 1.2 Fundarnentals of Remote-Couüol Systwis 1.3 Time Delay in RemoteControl Systcms 1.4 TirneDelay Compensation 1.5 Underground Mines 1.6 intelligent Control 1.7 Objectives 1.8 OutIine of the Thesis 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Time Delay in Remote Manipulation 2.2 Tirne Delay in Remte Dmring 2.3 TiDelayCompensation in Remotd=oatroi Systems 2.3.1 ForcJVeiocity Feedùack 2.3.2 Smith Controllcls 2.3.3 nedietor Displays and ViEnviroaments 2.3.4 Supervisory Control 23 -5 ûther Techniques 2.4 Madehg Human Operators in Con$ol Systcms 2.4.1 Trausfér Function Model 2.42 CrossoverMudei 2.4.3 Precogaitive Control and Preview 2.4.4 ûther Models 2.5 Summq 3. COMPENSATION MIR DELAY IN CONTROL SYSTEMS 3.1 Tune Delay in Coatrol Systems 3 2 Smith Control in Rernote-Control Systems 32.1 Tme-Delay Compensation 3 -2.2 Wuman Operator Compensation 3.3 System Equivalents Using Predictors 4. DESCiUPTION OF PRûPûSED CONTROL SYSTEM 4.1 Introduction 4.2 General 4.3 Local Terminal 4.4 Remote Terminal 4.4.1 General 4.4.2 Obstacl~AvoidaneeUsing Fuzy Logic 4.4.3 Spceâ ControUer Using Fuzty Control 4-4.4 Steaing Controller Using Fuz~yCoatrol 4.4.4.1 Tdeopemtion Mode 4-4-42 Sani-Autonomous Modes 4.4.5 Robot Vebide Dynamics 4.5 Speed and Stœring Control Systcm Diag~ams 4.6 HumanOpaatorCoasiderati~ll~ S. =STEM SIMULATIONS AND RESULTS 5.1 Sinnilation Eiiviroament 52 SystemPerfo~œwahNoT~DdayintheLoop 52.1 No HumOperatot in the Lmp 5.23 HumanOpaatOrintbcLoOp 5.3 System Per£wmuiee with TiDelay in tbe Loop 5.3.1 NoHuman~intheLoop 5.32 EhimanOp«atorhtheLoop 5.4 System Performance Using Predictor 5 -4.1 General 5.4.2 No Predictor in the Loop 5.4.3 Predictor in the Loop 5.5 System Performance with Mismatches 5.5.1 General 5.5.2 Time-Delay Mismatch 5.5.2.1 No Human Opcrator in the bop 5.5.2.2 Human Operator in the hp 5.5.3 Predictor Mismatch 5.6 Obstacle-Avoidance 5.7 Tunnel-Tracking 6. CONCLUSIONS 6.1 Summary and Conclusions 6.2 Unique Contributions 6.3 Future Work A Matîab/Siaünkhic Systtm Coufigurath A 1 Overail test contiguration A2 Complete system A3 Operasor/Console A4 Openiror SpeedlSteaingErm Response AS Operator SpeedlSteering Response A6. Local Telciuatonomous Contro11cf A7 System Delays A8 Remote Telc~utonomousControfla A9 ObstaclaAvoidance A 10 RTC Speed Control Al1 FuzySpdCa~trol A12 Smith Control A 13 RTC Steering Control A 14 Fuzq Steering Control A 15 Autosteering Control A 16 Robot Vehicle B MahWSimtiliiOk Alternate System Coniigumtion B. 1 AitmCompIete System B.2 Altanate opartor/Co~w)le B.3 Altemate Local Teleautonomous Contioller B.4 Alternate Remote Teleautonomous ConbolIer LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1. Rirsuit-tracking block diagram: (a) open- and closed-lwp modelq and (b) simplified mode1 (AAer Leslie [441). Figure 2.2. Major human operator pathways in a manmachine system (Mer McRuer [52D. Figure 2.3. Schematic view of preview display (After Hess [61]. Figure 3.1. Ede diagnuns of nondelayed and delayed systerns. Figure 3.2. Smith controI of time-delayed process: (a) Smith wntroller CS(s) in the lwp, and (b) equivalent system with conventional canaaller C(s). Figure 3.3. Smith control of remote-control system. (a) Smith controller C*(s) in the lwp, and (b) equivaient system with conventional controller C(s). Figure 3.4. Remote-cmntrol system Using a traditional Smith wntroller. Figure 3.5. Remotacantrol system using simplitied Smith control. Figure 3.6. Figure 3.7. Smithantrolled equivalents of ~cm~tacontrolsystem: (a) time delay at systu~~outpus and (b) tirne delay at system input. Figure 3.8. Smith control of rernote-coimpl systun including time delays and human operator dynamics: (a) block diagram with Smith controtler, and (b) equivalent system.
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