Robot Dynamics and Control

Equations of motion and the controllers that make robots move accurately: rigid-body and Lagrangian dynamics, actuators, gearing and friction, PID design and anti-windup, Routh, root locus and Nyquist stability, state feedback and observers, LQR, trajectory generation, computed torque control, impedance, admittance and hybrid force control, robust, adaptive and cascaded digital control, and a simulated two-link arm capstone.

ROB-300 Year 3 3 credits 12 lessons · 7 h 10 min

Offered by HSM University · Robotics

What you'll learn

  • Compute masses, centres of mass, moments of inertia and inertia tensors of robot links, and apply the parallel axis theorem and the Newton–Euler equations
  • Derive the equations of motion of manipulators with the Lagrangian method and interpret the inertia matrix, Coriolis, centrifugal and gravity terms and their properties
  • Model joint actuators, transmissions, friction and flexibility, and size motors against torque–speed envelopes and RMS duty-cycle torque
  • Design P, PD and PID joint controllers by pole placement and classical tuning, and handle derivative filtering, saturation and integrator windup
  • Analyse closed-loop stability with Routh–Hurwitz, root locus and Nyquist methods, and evaluate gain, phase and delay margins
  • Design state-feedback controllers by pole placement, test controllability and observability, and build Luenberger observers using the separation principle
  • Design linear quadratic regulators, choose weights with Bryson's rule, and compute discrete LQR gains by iterating the Riccati recursion
  • Generate cubic, quintic, trapezoidal and jerk-limited trajectories, synchronize joints and scale time to respect velocity, acceleration and torque limits
  • Apply gravity compensation, inverse-dynamics feedforward and computed torque control, and predict the effect of model error on tracking
  • Design impedance, admittance, direct force and hybrid position/force controllers, and reason about contact stability and passivity
  • Improve robustness with sliding mode control, disturbance observers, adaptation and parameter identification, and implement cascaded digital control loops
  • Take a robot controller from requirements through modelling, trajectory planning, control design and realistic simulation to a verified design

Course content

12 lessons · 7 h 10 min total · final exam

  1. 1 Rigid-body dynamics for robots 42 min · quiz
  2. 2 Lagrangian dynamics of manipulators 34 min · quiz
  3. 3 Actuator dynamics and joint modelling 36 min · quiz
  4. 4 PID control of a robot joint 34 min · quiz
  5. 5 Stability analysis of control loops 33 min · quiz
  6. 6 State feedback, pole placement and observers 35 min · quiz
  7. 7 Optimal control: the linear quadratic regulator 34 min · quiz
  8. 8 Trajectory generation and time scaling 37 min · quiz
  9. 9 Trajectory tracking and computed torque control 35 min · quiz
  10. 10 Force control: impedance, admittance and hybrid control 38 min · quiz
  11. 11 Robust, adaptive and digital control in practice 37 min · quiz
  12. 12 Capstone: designing and simulating a controller for a two-link arm 35 min · quiz
  13. E Final exam 20 questions

Requirements

Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.

Description

Equations of motion and the controllers that make robots move accurately: rigid-body and Lagrangian dynamics, actuators, gearing and friction, PID design and anti-windup, Routh, root locus and Nyquist stability, state feedback and observers, LQR, trajectory generation, computed torque control, impedance, admittance and hybrid force control, robust, adaptive and cascaded digital control, and a simulated two-link arm capstone.

Part of the Science stream, typically taken in year 3.