Control of hydraulically–actuated manipulators with dead–band and time–delay uncertainties*

Abstract

The research behind this article is motivated by robotic operations in radiologically contaminated environments, notably for nuclear decommissioning. However, the experiments reported within are based on a recently reconfigured, hydraulically-actuated, dual manipulator robot that is being used for R&D into both tele-operation and autonomy in a non-active laboratory setting. One element of this research concerns the development of novel control systems to address time-delay and deadband uncertainties. The article briefly discusses some preliminary results and plans in this regard. Recent improvements to the hardware demonstrator are also described.

Unknown and Time-Varying Time Delays in the Modelling and Control of Hydraulic Actuators: Literature Review

“…where q {u(t − τ )} represents a static nonlinear function of the input [5]. For brevity, further details are omitted from this article, but see [2] or [4] for an example of this static nonlinearity.…”

“…From a modelling and control systems design perspective, these challenges are well exemplified by the dual-HYDROLEK manipulators used by the present authors for research into nuclear decommissioning [2], [3], [4], [5]. Many nuclear facilities around the world have reached the end of their useful life.…”