skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Sensor guided control and navigation with intelligent machines. Final technical report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/809368· OSTI ID:809368

This item constitutes the final report on ''Visionics: An integrated approach to analysis and design of intelligent machines.'' The report discusses dynamical systems approach to problems in robust control of possibly time-varying linear systems, problems in vision and visually guided control, and, finally, applications of these control techniques to intelligent navigation with a mobile platform. Robust design of a controller for a time-varying system essentially deals with the problem of synthesizing a controller that can adapt to sudden changes in the parameters of the plant and can maintain stability. The approach presented is to design a compensator that simultaneously stabilizes each and every possible mode of the plant as the parameters undergo sudden and unexpected changes. Such changes can in fact be detected by a visual sensor and, hence, visually guided control problems are studied as a natural consequence. The problem here is to detect parameters of the plant and maintain st ability in the closed loop using a ccd camera as a sensor. The main result discussed in the report is the role of perspective systems theory that was developed in order to analyze such a detection and control problem. The robust control algorithms and the visually guided control algorithms are applied in the context of a PUMA 560 robot arm control where the goal is to visually locate a moving part on a mobile turntable. Such problems are of paramount importance in manufacturing with a certain lack of structure. Sensor guided control problems are extended to problems in robot navigation using a NOMADIC mobile platform with a ccd and a laser range finder as sensors. The localization and map building problems are studied with the objective of navigation in an unstructured terrain.

Research Organization:
Department of Systems Science and Mathematics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO (US)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-90ER14140
OSTI ID:
809368
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 26 Mar 2001; PBD: 26 Mar 2001
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English