Coordinated joint motion control system
AssigneeThe Board of Regents of the University and Community College System on Behalf of the University of Nevada, Reno
InventorGeorge Danko
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Abstract
A coordinated joint control system for controlling a coordinated joint motion system, e.g an articulated arm of a hydraulic excavator blends automation of routine tasks with real-time human supervisory trajectory correction and selection. One embodiment employs a differential control architecture utilizing an inverse Jacobian. Modeling of the desired trajectory of the end effector in system space can be avoided. The invention includes image generation and matching systems.
Claims21
A coordinated joint control system for controlling a coordinated joint motion system, the coordinated joint motion system comprising:
- a) a support system;
- b) an end effector movable relatively to the support system by the coordinated joint motion system;
- c) multiple links to link the end effector to the support system;
- d) multiple joints connecting the multiple links one to another, to the support system and to the end effector, each joint permitting relative movement between two adjacent ones of the members connected together by the respective joint;
- e) multiple actuators to effect said relative movement between the connected members, the multiple actuators being controlled by the coordinated joint control system;
- and
- f) an operator interface comprising at least one manually movable control member to input human operator-provided control signals to the control system;
- wherein the coordinated joint control system comprises:
- i) a menu of virtual kinematics configurations selectable through the operator interface, each virtual kinematics configuration comprising a family of trajectory paths of the end effector, each trajectory path being configured in at least two dimensions;
- ii) a model-based forward predictor to provide velocity components for operation of the coordinated joints to move the end effector according to a selected virtual trajectory family in differential form;
- iii) control connections between the operator interface and the model-based forward predictor to modify the coordinated joint velocity components of the virtual machine according to operator input;
- and
- iv) a differential control kinematics generator to generate a position-dependent differential inverse kinematics model of the coordinated joint motion system and to distribute to the multiple joint actuators coordinated control signals comprising the modified coordinated joint velocity components provided by the model-based forward predictor.
A real-time control method for controlling a coordinated joint motion system, the coordinated joint motion system comprising:
- a) a support system;
- b) an end effector movable relatively to the support system by the coordinated joint motion system;
- c) multiple links to link the end effector to the support system;
- d) multiple joints connecting the multiple links one to another, to the support system and to the end effector, each joint permitting relative movement between two adjacent ones of the members connected together by the respective joint;
- e) multiple actuators to effect said relative movement between the connected members, the multiple actuators being controlled by the coordinated joint control system;
- and
- f) an operator interface comprising at least one manually movable control member to input a human operator-provided control signal to the control system;
- wherein the control method comprises:
- i) operating the operator interface to select a virtual kinematics configuration, from a menu of virtual kinematics configurations each virtual kinematics configuration comprising a family of trajectory paths of the end effectorconfigured in at least two dimensions;
- ii) calculating velocity components for operation of the coordinated joints to move the end effector according to the selected virtual kinematics configuration using a model-based forward predictor;
- iii) determining the joint velocity components of the virtual machine from the control signal received from the operator interface and the model-based forward predictor;
- and
- iv) generating a position-dependent, differential inverse kinematics model of the coordinated joint motion system and
- v) distributing coordinated control signals comprising the coordinated joint velocity components determined by the model-based forward predictor and the differential inverse kinematics generator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.