Fundamental investigation into shared control methodologies in robotic applications

该提案的目的是研究共享控制器的设计和实现所涉及的基本问题及其在外科和生物科学的虚拟训练环境、机器人系统的远程控制和力反馈(触觉)设备的设计中的可能应用领域。虚拟训练环境由基于力学原理、图形渲染原理和触觉用户界面的设计组成。培训方法之一是向用户提供虚拟力量指导(虚拟指导)。这里的目的是探索约束计算力学中的方法，用于对用户的这种虚拟引导(例如打结)或约束运动进行有效的建模和稳定性分析。提出了一种新型的基于Internet的远程操作共享监控方案。这里，预期位置和力可以被定义为移动的约束表面，然后可以使用例如顺序蒙特卡罗方案来估计该移动约束表面。该方案已成功地应用于目标在运动轨迹中可能被遮挡的情况下的视觉跟踪。在该方案中，预期的对从设备的前馈运动和对主触觉设备的反馈反馈力可以配置在移动的共享控制面中，其中尽管存在短暂的停电和/或变化的时间延迟，但仍然可以实现稳健的性能。设计触觉装置的传统方法是将开放或闭合的运动链与阻抗装置形式的高带宽致动机构对接。一种新颖的设计概念是将驱动源与中间柔顺机构相结合，可以沿着单自由度创建一类低带宽的触觉反馈。与仅使用高扭矩致动器相比，这种主动机构可以为各种应用(如显微手术)设计触觉设备提供一种替代的、经济的方法。在机电结构中组合顺应膜的形状和大小以沿多个自由度产生触觉反馈的可能方法是主要的设计挑战。

The objective of this proposal is to investigate the fundamental issues involved in the design and implementation of shared controllers and their possible application areas of virtual training environments for surgical and biological sciences, and remote control of robotic systems and design of force feedback (haptic) devices. A virtual training environment consists of a design based on the principles of mechanics, graphics rendering and haptic user interface. One of the training approaches is to provide virtual force guidance (virtual mentoring) to the user. The objective here is to explore methods in constrained computational mechanics for effective modeling and stability analysis of such virtual guidance (e.g. to tie a knot) or constrained motions for the user. A novel shared monitoring/control scheme for the tele-manipulation over the internet will be developed for tele-surgery. Here, the expected position and force can be defined as moving constrained surfaces which can then be estimated using for example a sequential Monte Carlo scheme. Such scheme has been successfully applied to visual tracking of objects when the object can get occluded during its trajectory. In this proposal, the expected feed-forward motion to the slave device and the return feedback force to the master haptic device can be configured in a moving shared control surfaces where despite short black-outs and/or varying time delays, still a robust performance can be accomplished. A conventional approach for designing a haptic device is to interface an open or closed kinematic chain with a high bandwidth actuation mechanism in a form of an impedance device. A novel design concept is to combine an actuating source with an intermediate compliant mechanism which can create a class of low bandwidth haptic feedback along a single degree of freedom. In comparison to utilizing high torque actuators only, such active mechanism can offer an alternative and economical approach for designing a haptic device for various applications (e.g. micro-surgery). Possible approaches for combining the shape and size of the compliant membranes within the electromechanical configuration for creating haptic feedback along many degrees of freedom are the main design challenges.