See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/318234646

Control Based on Linear Algebra for Mobile Manipulators

Chapter · July 2018

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-60867-9_10

CITATION READS

1 76

4 authors, including:

Víctor H. Andaluz Edison Sasig

Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas-ESPE
116 PUBLICATIONS   325 CITATIONS    4 PUBLICATIONS   4 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Robotica View project

Virtual reality View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Edison Sasig on 03 March 2019.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Linear Algebra Applied to Kinematic Control
of Mobile Manipulators

Víctor H. Andaluz(&), Edison R. Sásig, William D. Chicaiza,

and Paola M. Velasco

Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Sangolquí, Ecuador

{vhandaluz1,erssigs,wdchicaiza1,
pmvelasco1}@espe.edu.ec

Abstract. This paper is focused in linear algebra theory applied to control of

mobile manipulator robots. In order to design the control algorithm, the kine-
matic system is approximated using numerical methods. Then, the optimal
control actions are obtained through linear algebra approach. The structure of
the controller consists in two solutions; a particular solution that allow following
the desired trajectory and a homogeneous solution that allow performing sec-
ondary objectives as maximum manipulability and avoid static obstacles. In
addition, the stability analysis is demonstrated through linear algebra concepts
where it is shown that the tracking error tends asymptotically to zero. Finally,
experimental results show the effective of proposed control algorithm over the
mobile manipulator robot AKASHA.

Keywords: Linear algebra
Numerical methods
Controller design
Model

Mobile manipulator

1 Introduction

Robotics missions have evolved into the service domain where robots are expected to
either exploit unknown dynamic environments, interact with human beings or
manipulate dangerous products. Mobile manipulators combine these capabilities, thus
expanding the working space, often characterized by a high degree of redundancy,
combining the manipulation of a fixed base robotic arm with the mobility of a wheeled
platform. Such systems allow the most common missions of robotic systems requiring
locomotion and manipulation skills [1, 2]. Field or service robotics applications are
numerous and all involve robots whose workspace capabilities have to be extended and
whose control architecture and strategies must ensure a good overall performance in
complex missions [3].
In the last decades, there has been a great deal of interest in mobile robots where,
mobile manipulators being an area of great interest to researchers, who are looking for
new non-linear control strategies. In [4] solves the trajectory-tracking problem by
combining neural networks and robust control. The nonlinear mapping characteristic of
neural networks and robust control are integrated in an adaptive control algorithm for
mobile manipulator robots with non-linearities, perturbations and non-holonomic
constraints all at the simulation level. PD feed-forward non-linear control is developed

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

K.J. Kim et al. (eds.), IT Convergence and Security 2017,
Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 449,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-6451-7_35
298 V.H. Andaluz et al.

in [5], this control makes use of the knowledge of the mathematical model of the
system and the measurement of the perturbations of process; is applied in a virtual
prototype where the control parameters must be known for the controller to work well;
[6] suggests a fuzzy PD controller to adjust parameters online depending on the state of
the dynamic system. Other advanced control strategies are implemented, for example in
[7] introduces a predictive control algorithm that has restrictions for a holonomic
mobile manipulator robot; constraints such as acceleration, velocity, position, and
avoiding obstacles are considered [8].
Control based on linear algebra is an innovative technique with main characteristics
of the non-necessity of complex calculations to reach the control signal and the sim-
plicity to make mathematical operations. [9–11]. In addition, the algorithm is easy to
understand and implement, it allows the direct adaptation to any micro-controller
without the need to make use of an external computer [12]. Due the fact that it is not a
complex algorithm, this can be run on low processing power drivers, [13] by presenting
a high yield on conventional computers, as a result, this algorithm supports savings in
processing time and energy at the moment of executing the desired task [14–16]. In
[17] presents a control algorithm based on linear algebra for mobile manipulator robots,
but this work does not considered the null space configuration and the design is
validated using simulation.
This paper proposes an algorithm of control based on linear algebra approach for
trajectory tracking tasks of mobile robotic systems, formed by a robotic arm mounted
on a mobile platform; the controller is based on kinematics and redundancy of the
system. The structure of the control law consists of two solutions: (1) one particular
solution that allow to meet the objective of the main task; and (2) a homogeneous
solution that allow performing one or more secondary objectives, this work is con-
sidered the internal configuration of the mobile manipulator control in order to avoid
singular configurations of the system and avoid static obstacles. The designed con-
troller is validated experimentally. In addition, the stability is demonstrated through
linear algebra concepts.
This article is organized into 4 Sections. Sect. 2 presents the modeling, design of
the control algorithm and the analysis of stability based on approaches of linear algebra
for the mobile manipulator. The discussion of experimental results is shown in Sect. 3,
and the conclusions of the article in Sect. 4.

2 Modeling and Control Design

In this section, the kinematic model and control law based on linear algebra theory and
numerical methods of the mobile manipulator is presented. In addition, the stability is
obtained through linear algebra concepts.
 Linear Algebra Applied to Kinematic Control 299

2.1 Kinematic Model

The instantaneous kinematic model of a mobile manipulator gives the derivative of its
end-effector location as a function of the derivatives of both the robotic arm configu-
ration and the location of the mobile platform.

h_ ðtÞ ¼ JðqÞvðtÞ ð1Þ

where h_ ¼ ½ h_ 1 h_ 2


h_ m T is the vector of end-effector velocity, v ¼

½ v1 v2


vdn T ¼ ½ vTp vTa T is the vector of mobile manipulator velocities in
which contains the linear and angular velocities of the mobile platform and contains the
joint velocities of robotic arm and J(q) is the Jacobian matrix that defines a linear
mapping between the vector of the mobile manipulator velocities v(t)and the vector of
the end-effector velocity [17, 18].

2.2 Kinematic Controller

Considering the first order differential equation

h_ ¼ f ðh; v; tÞ con hð0Þ ¼ h0

where, h represents the output of the system to be controller, h_ first derivative, v the
control action and t the time. The values of h(t) in the discrete time t = k T0 are called h
(k) where, T0 represents the sampling time and k ∊ {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…}. In addition, as
mentioned in [17] the use of numerical methods for the calculus of the system evo-
lution is based mainly on the possibility to approximation the state system at the instant
time k + 1, if the state and the control action on the time instant k are known, this
approximation is called Euler method.

hðk þ 1Þ ¼ hðkÞ þ T0 f ðh; u; tÞ ð2Þ

In order to design the controller, the model (1) can be approximated as (2)

hðk þ 1Þ ¼ hðk Þ þ T0 Jðqðk ÞÞvðk Þ ð3Þ

In addition, for that the tracking error tends to zero the following expression is used
[17]

hðk þ 1Þ ¼ hd ðk þ 1Þ  Wðhd ðkÞ  hðkÞÞ ð4Þ

where, hd is the desired trajectory W is a diagonal matrix and its values 0 <
diag(whx, why, whz) < 1 are design parameters of the proposed controller.
Remark 1. If a faster response is required, the values should be closer to 0 and if a
slower response is required, the values of should be closer to1.
300 V.H. Andaluz et al.

Now, to generate the system equations consider (3) and (4) then, the system can be
rewritten as Au = b.

hd ðk þ 1Þ  Wðhd ðk Þ  hðkÞÞ  hðk Þ

Jð qðk Þ Þ vðkÞ ¼ ð5Þ
|fflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflffl} |{z} T0
A u |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
b

Note, that the Jacobian matrix has more unknowns that equation (m < n) therefore, an
infinite solution exists to (5). A viable solution method is to formulate the problem as a
constrained linear optimization problem.

1
ðv  v0 ÞT ðv  v0 Þ ¼ min ð6Þ
2

Finally, a law of control for our system given by (5) is obtained minimizing (6):
 1   1 
vref ¼ JT JJT b þ In  JT JJT J v0 ð7Þ
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
vp vh

where the first term on the left-hand side is the particular solution (vp) and second term
(vh) of this equation belong to the null spaceJ. In this work two different secondary
objectives are considered: the obstacles avoid by the mobile platform and the singular
configuration
 prevention
 Tthrough
 the
 systems manipulability control and is given by
v0 ¼ H uobs xobs qd  qT , where H is a diagonal matrix allows to increase,
reduce or cancel the effect each objective, (qTd − qT) are configuration errors of the
mobile robotic arm, in such a way that the manipulator joints will be pulled to the
desired values that maximize manipulability and uobs, xobs are the linear velocity and
angular velocity of the mobile platform respectively that avoids the static obstacles by
resourcing to the null space configuration [18].

2.3 Stability Analysis

Considering the hypothesis of perfect velocity tracking, i.e., vref = v, (7) can be sub-
stituted into the kinematic model (3) to obtain the following closed-loop equation:
   1  
hðk þ 1Þ  hðkÞ ¼ T0 J JT ðJJT Þ1 b þ In  JT JJT J v0 ð8Þ

where JJT(JJT)−1 = Im the Eq. (6) is reduced

hðk þ 1Þ  hðkÞ ¼ T0 Im b þ ðJIn  Im JÞv0 ð9Þ

 Linear Algebra Applied to Kinematic Control 301

through the properties of an identity matrix is achieved

hd ðk þ 1Þ  Wðhd ðkÞ  hðkÞÞ  hðkÞ

hðk þ 1Þ  hðkÞ ¼ T0 ð10Þ
T0

reducing terms and grouping is calculated the error in the following state hd(k + 1) −
h(k + 1) depends only on the previous error for a gain W(hd(k) − h(k)) to,
2 3 2 3
ehx ðk þ 1Þ whxðehx ðkÞÞ
4 ehy ðk þ 1Þ 5 ¼ 4 why ehy ðkÞ 5
ehz ðk þ 1Þ whz ðehz ðk ÞÞ

The errors on the following states comes by

ei ðk þ 1Þ ¼ wi ei ðkÞ
ei ðk þ 2Þ ¼ wi ei ðk þ 1Þ ¼ w2i ei ðkÞ
ei ðk þ 3Þ ¼ wi ei ðk þ 2Þ ¼ w3i ei ðkÞ
..
.
ei ðk þ nÞ ¼ wi ei ðk þ n  1Þ ¼ wni ei ðkÞ

therefore the error tends asymptotically to zero when 0 < wi < 1 and n ! ∞

3 Experimental Results

In this section, the performance of the proposed control law is tested throught the
experimentation over the AKASHA robot which one consist of a robotic arm within
5DOF mount over a unicycle-type mobile platform. This platform allows linear
velocity and angular velocity as a reference signal, (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1. AKASHA: Manipulator Mobile Robot

302 V.H. Andaluz et al.

The experiment corresponds to the control system presents in (7). The desired
trajectory for the end-effector of the mobile manipulator is described by hd ¼
½ hxd hyd hzd T , where hxd = 0.5 + 0.2t, hyd = 0.3 sin (0.4t) and hzd = 0.5 + 0.1
sin (0.4t). In this experiment, the mobile platform starts at qp ¼ ½ 0 m 0 m 0 rad T ;
 T
the robotic arm at qa ¼ 29p 36
rad 2p3 rad 4p9 rad and v0 ¼ Hð½ 0 0 ð0 rad  q1 Þ
ð1:22 rad  q2 Þð1:05 rad  q3 ÞÞ.

Fig. 2. Stroboscopic movement of the mobile manipulator in the trajectory tracking and internal
configuration the of arm.

Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5 represent the experimental results. Figure 2, shows the desired
trajectory and the current trajectory of the end-effector. It can be seen that the proposed
controller presents a good performance while, considers the internal configuration of
arm. Figure 3, shows the evolution of the tracking errors, which remain close to zero,
while Figs. 4 and 5 show the optimal control actions.

Fig. 3. Control errors of the mobile manipulator

 Linear Algebra Applied to Kinematic Control 303

Fig. 4. Velocity commands to the mobile platform

Fig. 5. Joint velocity commands to the robotic arm

For the second experiment, it’s consider the avoidance of obstacles and maxima
manipulability where,
 the environment
 T is formed
 of a straight line and two static
obstacles, v0 ¼ H uobs xobs qd  q T
with qd ¼ ½ 0:698 2:27 2:27  to
maintain maxima manipulability of the mobile manipulator during task execution, the
mobile platform starts at qp ¼ ½ 0 m 1 m 0 rad T and robotic arm at
qa ¼ ½ 0 rad 0 rad 0 rad T .
Figures 6 and 7, shows the desired trajectory and the current trajectory of the
end-effector. It can be seen that the proposed controller allow to meet the desired
tracking trajectory while, avoiding static obstacles and considers the maxima manip-
ulability. Figure 8, shows the evolution of the tracking errors, which remain close to
zero.
304 V.H. Andaluz et al.

Fig. 6. Stroboscopic movement in two dimensions of the mobile manipulator in the trajectory
tracking experiment with avoidance of obstacles and maxima manipulability

Fig. 7. Stroboscopic movement in three dimension of the mobile manipulator in the trajectory
tracking experiment with avoidance of obstacles and maxima manipulability
 Linear Algebra Applied to Kinematic Control 305

Fig. 8. Control errors of the mobile manipulator with avoid static obstacles

4 Conclusions

In this work a control algorithm based on linear algebra and numerical methods for
mobile manipulator robots has been presented An advantage of this controller is its
simple implementation in any programming language. The proposed control algorithm
stability and performance has been analytically demonstrated trough the linear alge-
braic concepts. Two types of experiments were performed: one for follow desired
trayectory while consider internal configuration of arm and another for follow desired
trayectory while consider the avoidance of static obstacles and maxima manipulabilty.
Experimental results shown the optimal performance of this control algorithm.

Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thanks to the Consorcio Ecuatoriano para el
Desarrollo de Internet Avanzado -CEDIA-, and the Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE
for financing the project “Tele-Operación Bilateral Cooperativo de Múltiples Manipuladores
Móviles – CEPRAIX-2015-05”.

References
1. Andaluz, V., Chicaiza, F., Gallardo, C., Quevedo, W., Varela, J., Sánchez, J., Arteaga, O.:
Unity3D-MatLab simulator in real time for robotics applications. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, pp. 246–263. Springer, New York (2016)
2. Castellanos, E., García-Sánchez, C., Llanganate, W., Andaluz, V., Quevedo, W.: Robots
coordinated control for service tasks in virtual reality environments. Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, pp. 164–175. Springer, Cham (2017)
306 V.H. Andaluz et al.

3. Andaluz, V., Quevedo, W., Chicaiza, F., Varela, J., Gallardo, C., Sánchez, J., Arteaga, O.:
Transparency of a bilateral tele-operation scheme of a mobile manipulator robot. Lecture
Notes in Computer Science, pp. 228–245. Springer, New York (2016)
4. Naijian, C., Hao, Y., Xiangdong, H., Changsheng, A., Chenglong, T., Xiangkui, L.:
Adaptive robust control of the mobile manipulator based on neural network. In: 2016 IEEE
11th Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications (ICIEA) (2016)
5. Meng, Z., Liang, X., Andersen, H., Ang, M.: Modelling and control of a 2-link mobile
manipulator with virtual prototyping. In: 2016 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous
Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI) (2016)
6. Karray, A., Feki, M.: Tracking control of a mobile manipulator with fuzzy PD controller. In:
2015 World Congress on Information Technology and Computer Applications (2015)
7. Avanzini, G., Zanchettin, A., Rocco, P.: Constraint-based model predictive control for
holonomic mobile manipulators. In: 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS) (2015)
8. Fareh, R., Rabie, T.: Tracking trajectory for nonholonomic mobile manipulator using
distributed control strategy. In: 2015 10th International Symposium on Mechatronics and its
Applications (ISMA) (2015)
9. Scaglia, G., Rosales, A., Quintero, L., Mut, V., Agarwal, R.: A linear-interpolation-based
controller design for trajectory tracking of mobile robots. Control Eng. Pract. 18(3), 318–329
(2010)
10. Rómoli, S., Serrano, M., Ortiz, O., Vega, J., Eduardo Scaglia, G.: Tracking control of
concentration profiles in a fed-batch bioreactor using a linear algebra methodology. ISA
Trans. 57, 162–171 (2015)
11. Gandolfo, D., Rosales, C., Patiño, D., Scaglia, G., Jordan, M.: Trajectory tracking control of
a PVTOL aircraft based on linear algebra theory. Asian J. Control. 16(6), 1849–1858 (2013)
12. Rosales, A., Scaglia, G., Mut, V., di Sciascio, F.: Trajectory tracking of mobile robots in
dynamic environments—a linear algebra approach. Robotica 27(07), 981–997 (2009)
13. Špinka, O., Hanzálek, Z.: Energy-aware navigation and guidance algorithms for unmanned
aerial vehicles. In: 2011 IEEE 17th International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time
Computing Systems and Applications, vol. 2, pp. 83–88 (2011)
14. Rosales, C., Gandolfo, D., Scaglia, G., Jordan, M., Carelli, R.: Trajectory tracking of a mini
four-rotor helicopter in dynamic environments—a linear algebra approach. Robotica 33(08),
1628–1652 (2014)
15. Andaluz, V., Ortiz, J., Perez, M., Roberti, F., Carelli, R.: Adaptive cooperative control of
multi-mobile manipulators. In: IECON 2014—40th Annual Conference of the IEEE
Industrial Electronics Society. (2014)
16. Romoli, S., Scaglia, G., Serrano, M., Godoy, S., Ortiz, O., Vega, J.: Control of a fed-batch
fermenter based on a linear algebra strategy. IEEE Lat. Am. Trans. 12(7), 1206–1213 (2014)
17. Andaluz, V., Sásig, E., Chicaiza, W., Velasco, P.: Control Based on Linear Algebra for
Mobile Manipulators. Computational Kinematics, pp. 79–86. Springer, Cham (2017)
18. Andaluz, V., Roberti, F., Toibero, J., Carelli, R.: Adaptive unified motion control of mobile
manipulators. Control Eng. Pract. 20(12), 1337–1352 (2012)

View publication stats