Automation and Control Engineering #36: Lyapunov-Based Control of Robotic Systems

Lyapunov-Based Control of Robotic Systems describes nonlinear control design solutions for problems that arise from robots required to interact with and manipulate their environments. Since most practical scenarios require the design of nonlinear controllers to work around uncertainty and measurement-related issues, the authors use Lyapunov 's direct method as an effective tool to design and analyze controllers for robotic systems.

After describing the evolution of real-time control design systems and the associated operating environments and hardware platforms, the book presents a host of standard control design tools for robotic systems using a common Lyapunov-based framework. It then discusses several problems in visual servoing control, including the design of homography-based visual servo control methods and the classic structure from motion problem. The book also deals with the issues of path planning and control for manipulator arms and wheeled mobile robots. With a focus on the emerging research area of human machine interaction, the final chapter illustrates the design of control schemes based on passivity such that the machine is a net energy sink.

Including much of the authors own research work in controls and robotics, this book facilitates an understanding of the application of Lyapunov-based control design techniques to up-and-coming problems in robotics.

Written by Behal (U. of Florida, US), Dixon (U. of Florida, US), Dawson (Clemson U., US) and Xian (Tianjin U., China), this work describes frameworks for setting up nonlinear control design problems pertinent to robotic perception, interaction, and manipulation of environments, with the focus framework being Lyapunov-based nonlinear control design. Following an introduction to the history of robotics and the Lyapunov-based control philosophy, chapters cover the standard control design tools available for robotic systems within the context of the Lyapunov-based framework; problems in visual servoing control, including robot end-effector tracking a prerecorded time-varying reference trajectory under visual feedback from a monocular camera, estimating the shape of a continuum robot, tracking and regulation problems of wheeled mobile robots, and the classic Structure from Motion problem. They also discuss problems of path planning and control for manipulator arms and wheeled mobile robots, both when obstacle locations are known a priori and when they need to be determined in real time using fixed or in-hand vision as an active feedback element. They further address the emerging research area of human-machine interaction in the context of smart exercise machines, steer-by-wire control of vehicles, problems of force and motion in remote teleoperator systems, and rehabilitation robots for safely directing user limb motions. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lyapunov-Based Control of Robotic Systems provides applications of advanced nonlinear Lyapunov-type design and stability analysis arguments for robotic control; vision-based control, estimation, and path planning; and human-machine interaction. Through a unified theoretical framework, this book illustrates how recent techniques can be used to solve a variety of current problems associated with sensor-based feedback control and path planning of robotic, automation, and human-machine systems. With numerous examples and references, this text also contains experimental results that demonstrate real-time implementation of control and path planning algorithms on experimental test beds.