Dynamics and Control of Modular and Self-Reconfigurable Robotic Systems

Abstract

Abstract—In this paper, we introduce a framework for automatic generation of dynamic equations for modular self-reconfigurable robots and investigate a few adaptive control strategies. This framework enables to analyse the kinematics, dynamics and control for both, serial and branched multi-body robot topologies with different dyad structures. The equations for kinematics and dynamics are automatically generated using geometrical formulation methods and recursive Newton-Euler method. Different benchmarks examples are used to evaluate serial and branched robot configurations. As control strategies, computed torque method linearisation method together with Extended Kalman Filter estimator are used. A graphical tool has been developed, that enables easy to use interface and functionalities such as graphically selecting of robot topologies, visual feedback of trajectories and parameters editing. Keywords—multi-body kinematics and dynamics, self-adaptive systems, automatic model generator, adaptive control. I.