AbstractThis paper presents the static balancing design of a special reconfigurable linkage that can switch between two one-degree-of-freedom (DoF) working configurations. We will show that the studied dual-mode linkage only requires one mechanical spring or one counterweight for completely balancing its gravitational effect in theory at both modes. First, the theoretical models of the spring-based and the counterweight-based designs are derived. The proposed design concepts were then demonstrated by a numerical example and validated by software simulation. Experimental tests on both designs were also performed. The result of this study shows that a reconfigurable mechanism with N working configurations can be completely statically balanced by using less than N passive energy elements.

AbstractIn this work, we consider the problem of nonlinear system identification using data to learn multiple and often coupled parameters that allow a simulator to more accurately model a physical system or mechanism and close the so-called reality gap for more accurate robot control. Our approach uses iterative residual tuning (IRT), a recently developed derivative-free system identification technique that utilizes neural networks and visual observation to estimate parameter differences between a proposed model and a target model. We develop several modifications to the basic IRT approach and apply it to the system identification of a five-parameter model of a marble rolling in a robot-controlled labyrinth game mechanism. We validate our technique both in simulation—where we outperform two baselines—and on a real system, where we achieve marble tracking error of 4% after just five optimization iterations.

AbstractIn this paper, possibilities for workspace enlargement and joint trajectory optimization of a (6 + 3)-degree-of-freedom kinematically redundant hybrid parallel robot are investigated. The inverse kinematic problem of the robot can be solved analytically, which is a desirable property of redundant robots, and is implemented in the investigations. A new method for detecting mechanical interferences between two links which are not directly connected is proposed for evaluating the workspace. Redundant degrees-of-freedom are optimized in order to further expand the workspace. An approach for determining the desired redundant joint coordinates is developed so that a performance index can be minimized approximately when the robot is following a prescribed Cartesian trajectory. The presented approaches are readily applicable to other kinematically redundant hybrid parallel robots proposed by the authors.