深腔作业连续体机器人的运动学分析和力位操控性能综合

Continuum manipulators, which are flexible and compliant in comparison with their rigid-link counterparts, are extremely versatile. Particularly, it has potential capability for automated manipulation in confined and hazardous spaces, which occur in many industrial sectors including aerospace, defense and nuclear environments. However, because of the inherent characteristics of hyper-redundancy, under-actuation and low stiffness, external loads may result in undesired and complicated deflection/motion of continuum manipulators. This fact is identified as a major barrier for their industrial applications. .The primary aim of this project is to gain insight into the deflection/motion behavior of continuum robots, as well as the force capability of continuum robots. The research topics include the kinematics of non-constant-curvature continuum manipulators, characterization of self-motion and the null-space, variable (controllable) stiffness structure design, quantitative analysis of force-capability and manipulability-oriented design, real-time parameter calibration of kinematics model, algorithms for tele-operation, etc. Two kinds of manipulators are within the scope of this project, i.e., the continuum manipulators with truly continuum backbone, and “continuum-like” manipulators with segmented-rigid-link backbone. The research work will be extended to developing a prototype of continuum robot for simulated industrial environments (composed of 2 continuum manipulators, with totally 18~30 active DOFs). Experiments will be performed to verify the capability of the continuum robot for maneuvering and manipulation in confined spaces. .

连续体机器人因超冗余度、柔顺等特点，在航空航天、核电等工业部门的受限空间自动化作业中具有重要的潜在应用。但超冗余、柔顺及欠驱动特性的负面效应是机器人作业过程中外部载荷可导致连续体机构的复杂变形和运动，直接影响其可控操作性能。这也是连续体机器人工业应用的主要技术障碍之一。. 本项目以探索和认知外载荷作用下连续体机构的运动学行为及其末端力位操控特性为目标，开展非“常曲率”变形条件下连续体机构运动学建模、连续体机构的自运动与零空间特征分析、运动学参数实时标定、末端力操作性能定量分析及操作性能综合、分布式可控刚度设计、遥操作技术与遥操作界面设计以及相关的实验研究，旨在为连续体机器人设计和应用的关键技术研发提供理论支持。在理论研究基础上，项目拟研制深腔作业机器人实验系统（含两个连续体机械臂，共18~30个受控自由度），并开展模拟工业现场作业的连续体机器人深腔介入与负载操作实验。

本项目以航空、航天装备制造中的深腔检测与操作为潜在应用目标，研究超冗余度/连续体机械臂设计、制造与控制等基础科学问题，围绕超冗余度机械臂的设计与可操作性分析、连续体机构的非“常曲率”建模与变刚度设计、受限空间路径规划与控制等方面展开，研制了两类、四台深腔作业机器人原理样机，结合深腔检测和复杂环境探测的应用场景完成了样机演示与验证。研究工作的主要创新点如下：. 1）设计了基于 3-SPS-1U 机构的25自由度串并混联绳驱动超冗余度机器人，建立了驱动空间、关节空间与工作空间之间的运动学映射模型，提出了基于末端速度规划和微分逆向运动学的两级运动规划算法，解决传统雅可比迭代规划方法带来的速度波动问题。. 2）以分段“常曲率”模型结合卡尔曼滤波逼近非“常曲率”下运动学模型，突破了非线性力学建模不满足实时控制的难题，实现了连续体机器人非“常曲率”模型下的位姿控制。. 3）提出了一种预测查找和插值补偿算法结合的受限路径跟随方法，应用于自主开发的绳驱动超冗余度机器人，在飞机中央翼油箱模拟件、孔板障碍物阵列模拟件等应用场景完成了穿越连续障碍物和受限深腔探测任务。. 研究成果在《IEEE Transactions on Robotics》、《Applied Physics Letters》、《IEEE-ASME Transactions On Mechatronics》等机器人领域权威期刊和会议发表本基金号资助的论文37篇，其中SCI收录11篇，授权发明专利6项、实用新型专利1项，申请发明专利5项、申请软件著作权1项。