Neural impedance adaption for assistive human–robot interaction

Variable Impedance Control and Learning-A Review

Robots that physically interact with their surroundings, in order to accomplish some tasks or assist humans in their activities, require to exploit contact forces in a safe and proficient manner. Impedance control is considered as a prominent approach in robotics to avoid large impact forces while operating in unstructured environments. In such environments, the conditions under which the interaction occurs may significantly vary during the task execution. This demands robots to be endowed with online adaptation capabilities to cope with sudden and unexpected changes in the environment. In this context, variable impedance control arises as a powerful tool to modulate the robot's behavior in response to variations in its surroundings. In this survey, we present the state-of-the-art of approaches devoted to variable impedance control from control and learning perspectives (separately and jointly). Moreover, we propose a new taxonomy for mechanical impedance based on variability, learning, and control. The objective of this survey is to put together the concepts and efforts that have been done so far in this field, and to describe advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The survey concludes with open issues in the field and an envisioned framework that may potentially solve them.

Bi-Level Adaptive Computed-Current Impedance Controller for Electrically Driven Robots

This paper presents a bi-level adaptive computed-current impedance controller for electrically driven robots. This study aims to reduce calculation complexities by utilizing the electrical equations of actuators, instead of the entire model of the electromechanical system. Moreover, taking the dynamical effects of mechanical parts into account through the current’s feedback, external disturbances are compensated. In order to handle uncertainties, a bi-level optimization problem is formulated to obtain guaranteed stability besides the estimation convergence. An adaptation rule and its optimal tuning gain are achieved. The proposed method is applied to control of a rehabilitation robot to evaluate its performance.

Fault-Tolerant Neuro Adaptive Constrained Control of Wind Turbines for Power Regulation with Uncertain Wind Speed Variation

This paper presents a novel adaptive fault-tolerant neural-based control design for wind turbines with an unknown dynamic and unknown wind speed. By utilizing the barrier Lyapunov function in the analysis of the Lyapunov direct method, the constrained behavior of the system is provided in which the rotor speed, its variation, and generated power remain in the desired bounds. In addition, input saturation is also considered in terms of smooth pitch actuator bounding. Furthermore, by utilizing a Nussbaum-type function in designing the control algorithm, the unpredictable wind speed variation is captured without requiring accurate wind speed measurement, observation, or estimation. Moreover, with the proposed adaptive analytic algorithms, together with the use of radial basis function neural networks, a robust, adaptive, and fault-tolerant control scheme is developed without the need for precise information about the wind turbine model nor the pitch actuator faults. Additionally, the computational cost of the resultant control law is reduced by utilizing a dynamic surface control technique. The effectiveness of the developed design is verified using theoretical analysis tools and illustrated by numerical simulations on a high-fidelity wind turbine benchmark model with different fault scenarios. Comparison of the achieved results to the ones that can be obtained via an available industrial controller shows the advantages of the proposed scheme.