Improved Object Detection Using a Robotic Sensing Antenna with Vibration Damping Control

Abstract

Some insects or mammals use antennae or whiskers to detect by the sense of touch obstacles or recognize objects in environments in which other senses like vision cannot work. Artificial flexible antennae can be used in robotics to mimic this sense of touch in these recognition tasks. We have designed and built a two-degree of freedom (2DOF) flexible antenna sensor device to perform robot navigation tasks. This device is composed of a flexible beam, two servomotors that drive the beam and a load cell sensor that detects the contact of the beam with an object. It is found that the efficiency of such a device strongly depends on the speed and accuracy achieved by the antenna positioning system. These issues are severely impaired by the vibrations that appear in the antenna during its movement. However, these antennae are usually moved without taking care of these undesired vibrations. This article proposes a new closed-loop control schema that cancels vibrations and improves the free movements of the antenna. Moreover, algorithms to estimate the 3D beam position and the instant and point of contact with an object are proposed. Experiments are reported that illustrate the efficiency of these proposed algorithms and the improvements achieved in object detection tasks using a control system that cancels beam vibrations.

Improving the Detection of the Contact Point in Active Sensing Antennae by Processing Combined Static and Dynamic Information

“…Efficient algorithms based on the same principle have recently been developed that detect the instant at which a sensing antenna impacts an object. The algorithm proposed in [ 17 ] detected this instant with a delay of about 6 ms. It was later improved in [ 18 ], reducing this delay to about 4 ms.…”

“…They are then activated at the instant at which the contact is detected by one of the algorithms mentioned in the previous paragraph. Moreover, in order to improve the accuracy of this contact instant estimation, the control system in charge of moving the antenna in the free space must remove the vibration of the antenna during the maneuver [ 17 ].…”

A Review of Flexible Wearable Antenna Sensors: Design, Fabrication Methods, and Applications

“…In addition, antenna sensors have been evolved as another process to measure diverse physical parameters. To provide the wireless communication required by today’s information-oriented community, it is necessary to integrate flexible antenna sensors into flexible electronic systems [ 6 ].…”

Adaptive Sliding Mode Impedance Control of Single-Link Flexible Manipulators interacting with the Environment at an Unknown Intermediate Point

“…Important among these applications are the following: industrial new robotics applications with a focus on the use of lightweight materials; aerospace industry application in which the lightweight of the manipulators is an essential requirement; 1 motion control of large structures, such as boom cranes and fire rescue turntable ladders, which are treated as flexible link robots; 2 motion control of a sensing antenna that slides on a surface and detects an object. 3,4 Modeling, control, and some of the most important applications of the flexible manipulators have been reviewed in refs. [5][6][7][8][9].…”