LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course presents modern task-priority based control approaches to complex robotic systems. A general framework capable of controlling robotic structures ranging from fixed-base arms to dual arm mobile manipulators is discussed. The same framework is extended to cooperative anipulation by multiple agents in a distributed way.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course the student will be able to design a modern task-priority kinematic controller. In particular, the student will be able to:

• Define control objectives for a robotic system
• Choose the appropriate priority levels for the control tasks
• Create different new control actions, as building blocks for the robotic system
• Know the extension to a cooperative manipulation case

PREREQUISITES

For the 4 CFU version, students are required to know the fundamentals of kinematics.

TEACHING METHODS

The teaching modalities of this course are as follows.  
Approximately 20 hours are used to present the syllabus contents through regular lessons. The remaining hours are used for laboratory activities. In particular, a series of exercises of increasing difficulty are given and the class hours are exploited to solve them with the teacher's help. The exercises are carried out within a MATLAB simulation environment made available by the teacher.

A continous assessment will be made on the exercises developed during the lessons.

Lessons attendance is mandatory.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

For the 4 CFU version, the course will cover the following topics:

• Overview of the single agent control architecture
  • Basic definitions of relevant frames, actuation and sensory system
  • Hierarchical kinematic and dynamic control layers
• Task-priority control
  • Control objectives
  • Control tasks
  • Control Actions
  • Task-priority inverse kinematics
• Cooperative control
  • Extension of the task-priority for cooperative manipulation
  • Cooperative control for area coverage

The 6 CFU version of the course provides, at the beginning, the following additional content

• Fundamentals of kinematics
  • Frames, rotation and transformation matrices
  • Definition and properties of the angular velocity vector
  • Time derivatives of vectors
• Basic inverse kinematics

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The notes of the course will be available on Aulaweb and cover all the contents of the course.

For further readings, students can read the following books and papers:

• Siciliano, B., Sciavicco, L., Villani, L., Oriolo, G. (2009) Robotics: Modelling, Planning and Control. ISSN: 1439-2232
• Antonelli, G. (2018) Underwater robots. ISSN: 1610-7438
• Simetti, E., & Casalino, G. (2017). Manipulation and transportation with cooperative underwater vehicle manipulator systems. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 42(4), 782-799.
• Simetti, E., & Casalino, G. (2016). A novel practical technique to integrate inequality control objectives and task transitions in priority based control. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 84(1-4), 877-902.