“Modelling of Robotic arm”
Ramjee Prasad
10804900
Rh6802B54
B.Tech (LEET)
ECE
Introduction:
The term robot comes from the Czech word
robota, generally translated as "forced labor."
This describes the majority of robots fairly
well. Most robots in the world are designed for
heavy, repetitive manufacturing work. They
handle tasks that are difficult, dangerous or
boring to human beings.
The most common manufacturing robot is the
robotic arm. A typical robotic arm is made up
of seven metal segments, joined by six joints.
The computer controls the robot by rotating
individual step motors connected to each joint
(some larger arms use hydraulics or
pneumatics). Unlike ordinary motors, step
motors move in exact increments. This allows
the computer to move the arm very precisely,
repeating exactly the same movement over and
over again. The robot uses motion sensors to
make sure it moves just the right amount.
An industrial robot with six joints closely
resembles a human arm -- it has the equivalent
of a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist. Typically,
the shoulder is mounted to a stationary base
structure rather than to a movable body. This
type of robot has six degrees of freedom,
meaning it can pivot in six different ways. A
human arm, by comparison, has seven degrees
of freedom.
Like our arm's job is to move your hand from
place to place. Similarly, the robotic arm's job
is to move an end effector from place to place.
You can outfit robotic arms with all sorts of
end effectors, which are suited to a particular
application. One common end effector is a
simplified version of the hand, which can
grasp and carry different objects. Robotic
hands often have built-in pressure sensors
that tell the computer how hard the robot is
gripping a particular object. This keeps the
robot from dropping or breaking whatever it's
carrying. Other end effectors include
blowtorches, drills and spray painters.
Industrial robots are designed to do exactly the
same thing, in a controlled environment, over
and over again. For example, a robot might
twist the caps onto peanut butter jars coming
down an assembly line. To teach a robot how
to do its job, the programmer guides the arm
through the motions using a handheld
controller. The robot stores the exact sequence
of movements in its memory, and does it again
and again every time a new unit comes down
the assembly line.
Most industrial robots work in auto assembly
lines, putting cars together. Robots can do a lot
of this work more efficiently than human
beings because they are so precise. They
always drill in the exactly the same place, and
they always tighten bolts with the same
amount of force, no matter how many hours
they've been working. Manufacturing robots
are also very important in the computer
industry. It takes an incredibly precise hand to
put together a tiny microchip.
Defining parameters:
• Number of axes – two axes are
required to reach any point in a plane;
three axes are required to reach any
point in space. To fully control the
orientation of the end of the arm (i.e.
the wrist) three more axes (yaw, pitch,
and roll) are required. Some designs
(e.g. the SCARA robot) trade
limitations in motion possibilities for
cost, speed, and accuracy.
• Degrees of freedom which is usually
the same as the number of axes.
• Working envelope – the region of
space a robot can reach.
• Kinematics – the actual arrangement
of rigid members and joints in the
robot, which determines the robot's
possible motions. Classes of robot
kinematics include articulated,
cartesian, parallel and SCARA.
• Carrying capacity or payload – how
much weight a robot can lift.
• Speed – how fast the robot can
position the end of its arm. This may
be defined in terms of the angular or
linear speed of each axis or as a
compound speed i.e. the speed of the
end of the arm when all axes are
moving.
• Acceleration - how quickly an axis
can accelerate. Since this is a limiting
factor a robot may not be able to reach
its specified maximum speed for
movements over a short distance or a
complex path requiring frequent
changes of direction.
• Accuracy – how closely a robot can
reach a commanded position.
Accuracy can vary with speed and
position within the working envelope
and with payload (see compliance). It
can be improved by Robot calibration.
• Repeatability - how well the robot
will return to a programmed position.
This is not the same as accuracy. It
may be that when told to go to a
certain X-Y-Z position that it gets only
to within 1 mm of that position. This
would be its accuracy which may be
improved by calibration. But if that
position is taught into controller
memory and each time it is sent there
it returns to within 0.1 mm of the
taught position then the repeatability
will be within 0.1 mm.
• Motion control – for some
applications, such as simple pick-and
place assembly, the robot need merely
return repeatably to a limited number
of pre-taught positions. For more
sophisticated applications, such as
welding and finishing (spray painting),
motion must be continuously
controlled to follow a path in space,
with controlled orientation and
velocity.
• Power source – some robots use
electric motors, others use hydraulic
actuators. The former are faster, the
latter are stronger and advantageous in
applications such as spray painting,
where a spark could set off an
explosion; however, low internal air-
pressurisation of the arm can prevent
ingress of flammable vapours as well
as other contaminants.
• Drive – some robots connect electric
motors to the joints via gears; others
connect the motor to the joint directly
(direct drive). Using gears results in
measurable 'backlash' which is free
movement in an axis. Smaller robot
arms frequently employ high speed,
low torque DC motors, which
generally require high gearing ratios;
this has the disadvantage of backlash.
In such cases the harmonic drive is
often used.
• Compliance - this is a measure of the
amount in angle or distance that a
robot axis will move when a force is
applied to it. Because of compliance
when a robot goes to a position
carrying its maximum payload it will
be at a position slightly lower than
when it is carrying no payload.
Compliance can also be responsible
for overshoot when carrying high
payloads in which case acceleration
would need to be reduced.
Robot Arm Design:
The robot arm is probably the most
mathematically complex robot you could ever
build. As such, this tutorial can't tell you
everything you need to know. Instead, I will
cut to the chase and talk about the bare
minimum you need to know to build an
effective robot arm. Enjoy!
To get you started, here is a video of a robot
arm assignment I had when I took Robotic
Manipulation back in college. My group
programmed it to type the current time into the
keyboard . . . (lesson learned, don't crash robot
arms into your keyboard at full speed while 3 DOF Robot Arm, with a
testing in front of your professor) translation joint:

Degrees of Freedom (DOF):

The degrees of freedom, or DOF, is a very

important term to understand. Each degree of
freedom is a joint on the arm, a place where it
can bend or rotate or translate. You can
typically identify the number of degrees of
freedom by the number of actuators on the
robot arm. Now this is very important - when
building a robot arm you want as few degrees
of freedom allowed for your application!!!
Why? Because each degree requires a motor,
often an encoder , and exponentially
complicated algorithms and cost.

The Robot Arm Free Body Diagram (FBD:

The Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) Convention is 5 DOF Robot Arm:
the accepted method of drawing robot arms in
FBD's. There are only two motions a joint
could make: translate and rotate. There are
only three axes this could happen on: x, y, and
z (out of plane). Below I will show a few robot
arms, and then draw a FBD next to it, to
demonstrate the DOF relationships and
symbols. Note that I did not count the DOF on
the gripper (otherwise known as the end
effector). The gripper is often complex with
multiple DOF, so for simplicity it is treated as
separate in basic robot arm design.

Notice between each DOF there is a

linkage of some particular length.
Sometimes a joint can have multiple
DOF in the same location. An
example would be the human
shoulder. The shoulder actually has
three coincident DOF. If you were to
mathematically represent this, you
would just say link length = 0.

Also note that a DOF has its limitations,
known as the configuration space. Not all
joints can swivel 360 degrees! A joint has
some max angle restriction. For example, no
human joint can rotate more than about 200
degrees. Limitations could be from wire
wrapping, actuator capabilities,servo max
angle, etc. It is a good idea to label each link
length and joint max angle on the FBD.
The robot arm can also be on a mobile base,
adding additional DOF. If the wheeled robot
can rotate, that is a rotation joint, if it can
move forward, then that is a translational joint.
This mobile manipulator robot is an example
of a 1 DOF arm on a 2 DOF robot (3 DOF
total).
Robot Workspace:
The robot workspace is all places that the end
effector (gripper) can reach. The workspace is
dependent on the DOF angle/translation
limitations, the arm link lengths, the angle at
which something must be picked up at, etc.
The workspace is highly dependent on the
robot configuration.
Since there are many possible configurations
for your robot arm, from now on we will only
talk about the one shown below. I chose this 3
DOF configuration because it is simple, yet
isnt limiting in ability.
Now lets assume that all joints rotate a
maximum of 180 degrees, because most
servo motors cannot exceed that amount. To
determine the workspace, trace all locations
that the end effector can reach as in the image
below.
Now rotating that by the base joint another 180
degrees to get 3D, we have this workspace
image. Remember that because it uses servos,
all joints are limited to a max of 180 degrees.
This creates a workspace of a shelled semi-
sphere .
If you change the link lengths you can get very
different sizes of workspaces, but this would
be the general shape. Any location outside of
this space is a location the arm can’t reach. If
there are objects in the way of the arm, the
workspace can get even more complicated.
Here are a few more robot workspace
examples:

Scara Robot Arm

Cylindrical Robot Arm

Articulated Robot Arm

Spherical Robot Arm Mobile Manipulators :
A moving robot with robotic arm is a sub-class
of robotic arms. They work just like other
robotic arms, but the DOF of the vehicle is
added to the DOF of the arm. If say you have a
differential drive robot (2 DOF) with a robot
arm (5 DOF) attached (see yellow robot
below), that would give the robot arm a total
sum of 7 DOF shorter arm lengths allow for smaller torque
requirements.

Forward Kinematics:

Forward kinematics is the method for

determining the orientation and position of the
end effector, given the joint angles and link
lengths of the robot arm. To calculate forward
kinematics, all you need is high school
trigonometry and algebra.

Ex:-Here we can calculate end effector

Force Calculations of Joints: location with given joint angles and link
lengths. To make visualization easier for you, I
This is where this tutorial starts getting heavy drew blue triangles and labeled the angles.
with math. Before even continuing, I strongly
recommend you read the mechanical
engineering tutorials for statics and dynamics.
This will give you a fundamental
understanding of moment arm calculations.

The point of doing force calculations is for

motor selection. We must make sure that the
motor you choose can not only support the
weight of the robot arm, but also what the
robot arm will carry. The first step is to label
your FBD, with the robot arm stretched out to
its maximum length.

Choose these parameters:

Inverse Kinematics:
o weight of
each linkage Inverse kinematics is the opposite of forward
o weight of kinematics. This is when you have a desired
each joint end effector position, but need to know the
o weight of joint angles required to achieve it. The robot
object to lift sees a kitten and wants to grab it, what angles
should each joint go to? Although way more
o length of useful than forward kinematics, this
each linkage calculation is much more complicated too. As
such, I will not show you how to derive the
Next you do a moment arm calculation, equation based on your robot arm
multiplying downward force times the linkage configuration.
lengths. This calculation must be done for each
lifting actuator. This particular design has just So what makes inverse kinematics so hard?
two DOF that requires lifting, and the center of Well, other than the fact that it involves non-
mass of each linkage is assumed to be linear simultaneous equations, there are other
Length/2. reasons too.

As you can see, for each DOF you add the First, there is the very likely possibility of
math gets more complicated, and the joint multiple, sometimes infinite, number of
weights get heavier. You will also see that solutions (as shown below). How would your
arm choose which is optimal, based on
torques, previous arm position, gripping angle,
etc.?
vary between them. When you tell the end
effector to go from one point to the next, you
have two decisions. Have it follow a straight
line between both points, or tell all the joints to
go as fast as possible - leaving the end effector
to possibly swing wildly between those points.

In the image below the end effector of the

There is the possibility of zero solutions.
Maybe the location is outside the workspace,
or maybe the point within the workspace must
be gripped at an impossible angle.
Singularities: a place of infinite acceleration,
can blow up equations and/or leave motors
lagging behind (motors cant achieve infinite
acceleration).
robot arm is moving from the blue point to the
red point. In the top example, the end effector
travels a straight line. This is the only possible
motion this arm can perform to travel a
straight line. In the bottom example, the arm is
told to get to the red point as fast as possible.
Given many different trajectories, the arm
goes the method that allows the joints to rotate
the fastest.

Motion Planning :

Motion planning on a robot arm is fairly

complex. Suppose your robot arm has objects
within its workspace, how does the arm move
through the workspace to reach a certain
point? To do this, assume your robot arm is
just a simple mobile robot navigating in 3D
space. The end effector will traverse the space
just like a mobile robot, except now it must
also make sure the other joints and links do not
collide with anything too. This is extremely
difficult to do.
Velocity (and more Motion Planning):
Calculating end effector velocity is
mathematically complex, so I will go only into
the basics. The simplest way to do it is assume
your robot arm (held straight out) is a rotating
wheel of L diameter. The joint rotates at Y
rpm, so therefore the velocity is
Which method is better? There are many
deciding factors. Usually you want straight
lines when the object the arm moves is really
heavy, as it requires the momentum change for
movement (momentum = mass * velocity).
But for maximum speed (perhaps the arm isn't
carrying anything, or just light objects) you
would want maximum joint speeds.
Now suppose you want your robot arm to
operate at a certain rotational velocity, how
much torque would a joint need? First, lets go
back to our FBD:

Velocity of end effector on straight arm = 2

* pi * radius * rpm

However the end effector does not just rotate

about the base, but can go in many directions.
The end effector can follow a straight line, or
curve, etc. With robot arms, the quickest way
between two points is often not a straight line.
If two joints have two different motors, or
carry different loads, then max velocity can
Now lets suppose you want joint J0 to rotate
180 degrees in under 2 seconds, what torque
does the J0 motor need? Well, J0 is not
affected by gravity, so all we need to consider
is momentum and inertia. Putting this in
equation form we get this:
torque
=moment_of_inertia*angular_acceleration
breaking that equation into sub components we
get:
torque
=(mass*distance^2)*(change_in_angular_velo
city / change_in_time)
and
change_in_angular_velocity
=(angular_velocity1)-(angular_velocity0)
angular_velocity
=change_in_angle/change_in_time
Now assuming at start time 0 that
angular_velocity0 is zero, we get
torque = (mass * distance^2) * may want to add additional sensors, such as
(angular_velocity / change_in_time)
where distance is defined as the distance from
the rotation axis to the center of mass of the
arm:
center of mass of the arm = distance = 1/2*
(arm_length) (use arm mass)
but you also need to account for the object
your arm holds:
center of mass of the object = distance =
arm_length (use object mass)
So then calculate torque for both the arm and
then again for the object, then add the two
torques together for the total:
torque(of_object) + torque(of_arm) = sensors. Robotic arms for amputees are doing
torque(for_motor)
Arm Sagging :
Arm sagging is a common affliction of badly
designed robot arms. This is when an arm is
too long and heavy, bending when outwardly
stretched. When designing your arm, make
sure the arm is reinforced and lightweight. Do
a finite element analysis to determine bending
deflection/stress .
Keep the heaviest components, such as motors,
as close to the robot arm base as possible. It
might be a good idea for the middle arm joint
to be chain/belt driven by a motor located at
the base (to keep the heavy motor on the base
and off the arm).
Sensing:
Most robot arms only have internal sensors,
such as encoders. But for good reasons you
video, touch, haptic, etc.
A robot arm without video sensing is like an
artist painting with his eyes closed. Using
basic visual feedback algorithms, a robot arm
could go from point to point on its own
without a list of preprogrammed positions.
Giving the arm a red ball, it could actually
reach for it (visual tracking and servoing). If
the arm can locate a position in X-Y space of
an image, it could then direct the end effector
to go to that same X-Y location (by using
inverse kinematics).
Haptic sensing is a little different in that there
is a human in the loop. The human controls the
robot arm movements remotely. This could be
done by wearing a special glove, or by
operating a miniature model with position
a form of haptic sensing. Also to note, some
robot arms have feed back sensors (such as
touch) that gets directed back to the human
(vibrating the glove, locking model joints,
etc.).
Tactile sensing (sensing by touch) usually
involves force feedback sensors and current
sensors. These sensors detect collisions by
detecting unexpected force/current spikes,
meaning a collision has occurred. A robot end
effector can detect a successful grasp, and not
grasp too tight or too lightly, just by measuring
force. Another method would be to use
current limiters - sudden large current draws
generally mean a collision/contact has
occurred. An arm could also adjust end
effector velocity by knowing if it is carrying a
heavy object or a light object - perhaps even
identify the object by its weight.
Fault Monitoring and Collision Avoidness:
It is critical that robotic arm operate safely
during the execution of its assigned tasks so as
not to damage itself or other hardware. Each
time through the control loop, sensor data is
analyzed and assessment made as to whether
any hardware failures have occurred.
Available sensor data include joint positions
from both encoders pot voltages, motor
currents, joint temperature, power supply
status, and A/D reference voltages. Potential
hardware faults include failures of the sensors,
motors, power supply, or voltage reference.
the positions of the joints as determined from
both encoders and pot voltages is also assessed
and if the difference exceeds a specified
limit ,the arm is recalibrated , during normal
operation the encoders are used to as the
primary joint-position sensor with some
degradation of positioning accuracy.
Trajectory Planning:
The robotic arm has the capability to execute
both Cartesian and joint motion commands.
Cartesian motion can be expressed as absolute
or relative motion in the world frame or as tool
frame motion. Furthermore straight line or
joint-interpolated motion can be given as
absolute joints angles, as relative joint angles
with respect to the current joint position, or as
timed motion. In order to prevent damaging
robotic hardware in the event of loss
communication between the ACF and control
software, a sequence of via points in computed
for any motion command and only after the
arm has nearly reached the current via points is
the next via point sent to the ACE. Thus
trajectory is generated as a sequence of points
in space only and not in time. The one
exception is the timed joint motion commands
in which the operator can command each joint
to move for a specified amount of time in
which case the generated trajectory is a
sequence of via points in time only and not in
space.
End effectors:
The most essential robot peripheral is the end
effector, or end-of-arm-tooling.
Common examples of end effectors
include welding devices (such as
MIG-welding guns, spot-welders,
etc.), spray guns and also grinding and
deburring devices (such as pneumatic
disk or belt grinders, burrs, etc.), and
grippers (devices that can grasp an
object, usually electromechanical or
pneumatic). Another common means
of picking up an object is by vacuum.
End effectors are frequently highly
complex, made to match the handled
product and often capable of picking
up an array of products at one time.
They may utilize various sensors to
aid the robot system in locating,
handling, and positioning products.
Neuroevolution of a Robot Arm Controller
Introduction:
Arm movements at stationary or moving
targets are common in the motor repertoire of
humans, but little is known on how the brain
uses spatiovisual information concerning the
locations of targets for the generation of arm
movements and how it controls the different
neural and muscular structures involved during
the formation of arm trajectories. Newborn
babies possess biological networks that are
initally capable of performing only reflex
actions. As infants learn about their
surroundings and begin to comprehend their
senses, their biological networks complexify
allowing them to perform more intelligent
motor control tasks. Using neuroevolution it is
possible to evolve networks that can simulate
infant motor development. Neuroevolution
was used to evolve controllers for a simulated
robot arm that can position the arm’s end-
effector close to a stationary target and track
moving targets.
In order to successfully control an arm, a
neurocontroller must satisfy two conditions: 1)
A neural controller must be able to sucessfully
interact with its arm in order to execute
centrally planned complex actions. 2) Visually
specified goals must be linked with
appropriate motor acts, these motor acts must
be able to move the arm to the desired goal
(Konczak 2004). Newborn babies cannot
peform these processes for many reasons: they
have limited knowledge about the physical
makeup of their bodies, their limited motor
repertoire consists only of reflex actions, they
have limited visual capabilities, and they do
not possess complex neural control
mechanisms. Despite these limitations, babies
as young as one week will attempt small arm
movements directed to a target. Even though
these early arm movements are unpredictable,
they are not the result of random activity or
purely reflex actions (Trevarthen 1980). As
soon as infants begin catching stationary
objects successfully, they also begin to catch
moving objects. According to Von Hofsten, at
18 weeks babies are able to perform
anticipatory arm movements when trying to
intercept a moving target; these interceptive
actions are triggered by the presence of a
target in the infant’s field of view (von
Hofsten 1980). At about three months of age,
infants reach consistently for targets in their
surroundings and rarely miss their targets
(Konczak 2004). Kinematically their hand
paths become straighter and they show signs
of external force manipulation. Infant
movements become more economical and
muscles are activated only when they are
needed. At 24 to 36 months of age, infants
demonstrate adult-like capability in reaching
for stationary and moving targets (Konczak
2004). Many of the problems associated with
the planning and execution of human arm
trajectories are illuminated by control
strategies which have been developed for
robotic manipulators. Since artificial and
biological motor control systems often face the
same problems, the solutions to these
problems are also the same (Hollerbach 1985).
This paper presents results on arm positioning
and target tracking for a simulated robot arm,
that parallel results from arm positioning and
target tracking experiments that were carried
out on infants (Jansen-Osmann et al. 2002; von
Hofsten et al. 1998). This paper models two
aspects of infant development using
neurocontrollers: 1) infants’ ability to
generalize which enables them to perform
reaching tasks that they have not previously
performed, and 2) infants ability to extrapolate
paths of moving objects in order to track them.
The next section describes learning algorithms
that have been applied to robot control tasks.
Section 3 describes the Simderella robot arm
simulator and the NeuroEvolution of
Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) genetic
algorithm.
Related Work:
Robot arm control using distance sensors is a
complex task that requires mapping the
target’s location relative to the endeffector to
joint movements that position the arm near the
target. It is difficult to specify such a mapping
by hand, so researchers have applied various
machine learning techniques to learn successul
control strategies.
Supervised learning methods have been
applied to robot control tasks (van der Smagt
1995). Supervised learning requires training
examples that demonstrate the correct
mapping from input to output. During training
the network is present with input from the
training set, and the output is compared to the
desired output. Errors are calculated according
to differences, and modifications are made to
the network’s weights using backpropagation.
One limitation of this approach is that
generating training examples for complex
tasks can be difficult.
Exploratory methods involve providing the
robot with a set of exploratory behaviors. The
robot learns affordances during a behavioral
babbling stage where the robot randomly
chooses different exploratory behaviors,
applies them to objects and detects sensor
invariants (Stoytchev 2005). A shortcoming of
this approach is that there are affordances that
cannot be discovered because the robot does
not possess the required exploratory behavior.
Both supervised learning methods and
expoloratory approaches require human input
which can be cumbersome. Supervised
learning methods try to model how infants are
taught by demonstration while exploratory
methods model how infants use a subset of
their behaviorial repertoire to perform a task.
Using supervised learning, the controller
learns behaviors very similar to those in the
training set. In exploratory learning, the
controllers learn behaviors that are a
combination of the exploratory behaviors that
it was provided with. Both supervised and
exploratory learning cannot properly model
learning completely new behaviors. Learning
new behaviors can be modelled by using
reinforcement learning or genetic algorithms,
which are able to determine the effectiveness
of behaviors required to perform a task. In
reinforcement learning, agents learn from a
signal that provides some measure of
performance which can be provided after a
sequence of joint movements are made. As
reinforcement signals take into account several
control decisions at once, appropriate credit
can be assigned to intermediate joint
movements that are neccessary to reach the
final target position.
In neuroevolution, the evolutionary search is
guided by a single fitness evaluation over the
entire task, which may involve learning
different skills such manipulating different
joints to reach a target, thus neuroevolution
can also be used to learn to position the arm
near a target after performing multiple joint
movements. Using these methods it is possible
to learn new effective behaviors in a way
similar to how infants try out different
behaviors and thereby discover useful ones.
Neuroevolution of networks has been shown to
be as effective and in some cases outperforms
reinforcement learning methods (Moriarty and
Miikkulainen 1996). This paper uses the
NEAT genetic algorithm to evolve robot
controllers. When adult humans perform goal-
directed arm movements under the influence
of an external force, they learn to adapt to the
external force. After removing the external
force field, they reveal kinematic after-effects
that are indicative of a neural controller that
still compensates for the external force. This
behaviour suggests that humans use a neural
representation of the inverse arm dynamics
required to control their arms (Konczak 2004).
This paper proposes that the neural
representation is a biological neural network,
which can be modified based on the task the
human is trying to acheive. For example, when
humans perform reaching tasks under an
external force field, they learn to move their
arms while applying a force opposite to that of
the external force field. This is possible
because biological neural networks can be
modified to perform a task under different
conditions. This paper tries to model the neural
inverse dynamics model of the brain by
evolving robot arm neurocontrollers using the
NEAT genetic algorithm. NEAT does not
require
explicit training examples and can be used to
evolve neural networks for control tasks.
NEAT which evolves both structure and
weights of neural networks was used to evolve
controllers which were tested using a
simulated OSCAR-6 robot arm. NEAT
combines the usual search for the appropriate
network weights with complexification of the
network structure, allowing the behavior of
evolved neural networks to become
increasingly sophisticated over generations .
Simderella:
The Simderella 3.0 simulator is based on the
OSCAR- 6 anthropomorphic arm; controllers
that perform well.
Figure 2: Evolved network for stationary
target task.
The final complex network that is evolved by
adding nodes and connections and mutating
weights. The black lines represent excitatory
connections and the blue lines represent
inhibitory connections.
within Simderella exhibit the same
performance level in the OSCAR-6 robot arm.
Simderella abstracts the mechanical structure
and electronic hardware of a physical robot
arm and provides an interface to test various
control strategies. Simderella provides an
environment where one can place simulated
targets. Simderella has six rotational joints,
whose position can be set by a controller. A
neural network that is provided with relative
positions and velocities of targets to the end-
effector, and with an appropriate fitness
function can evolve to learn the sequence of
joint angles that are required to position its
end-effector close to a target. The simderella
robot arm is described in a Denavit-Hartenberg
matrix which is read at startup. Coordinate
frames are assigned to each link which are
used during forward kinematics to alter the
position of the arm for a given set of joint
angles. During normal operation, target joint
values _, velocities _˙ and accelerations _¨ are
used to specify a new path for the arm during
each time-step.
NEAT:
NEAT evolves increasingly complex neural
networks to match the complexity of the
problem. NEAT evolves both connection
weights and topology, which results in
significant performance gains.
NEAT has been shown to be effective in many
applications such as pole balancing, robot
control, vehicle control, board games and
videogames (Stanley 2004; Stanley and
Miikkulainen 2004). NEAT is based on three
fundamental principles: 1) incrementally
growing networks from a minimal structure 2)
employing a principled method of crossover of
different topologies 3) protecting structural
innovation through speciation. NEAT
genomes consist of a list of node genes which
specify whether a node is an input, output or
bias node, and connection genes which
specifies the connection in-node, outnode,
connection weight, whether or not the
connection is enabled and an innovation
number which is a unique identifier assigned
to each gene and used to differentiate between
genes. Genetic algorithms use mutation and
crossover operators to grow networks.
Structural mutations can occur in two ways
add connection in which a single new
connection gene is added connecting two
previously unconnected nodes, and add node
where an existing connection is replaced with
a new node. Whenever a new connection
between nodes is created through mutation, it
is assigned a unique innovation number.
Crossover (mating) is used to produce
offspring at each generation from existing high
fitness parent networks. The efficient mating
of two different genomes to produce offspring
is accomplished through innovation numbering
which makes it possible to keep track of
common genes. Whenever networks are
crossed over, those genes that have the same
innovation
number can be safely aligned and inherited.
Genes of the fit organism with innovation
numbers not found in the other parent are
inherited by the offspring as well. Innovation
numbering tackles the competing conventions
problem by preventing the inheritance of same
genes with different labels.
NEAT can form a diverse population of
networks by adding new genes and mating
sensibly. One problem with this approach is
that smaller networks optimize faster than
large networks, and adding new connections
and genes ususally initially decreases the
fitness of the network, thus newly created
structures are less likely to survive. This
problem is solved by speciation which divides
the population into separate, distinct
subpopulations. The structure of each
individual is compared dynamically with
others and those with similar structure are
grouped together. Individuals within a species
share the species’ overall fitness, and compete
primarily within that species. Speciation
allows new innovations to be optimized
without facing competition from individuals
with different structures. Figure 2 depicts a
network evolved for the stationary task. The
network is complex and has many hidden units
in order to effectively approximate the non-
linear inverse kinematic equations required to
maneuver the arm.
Stationary Targets:
Each neural network starts at a standard
position. During evolution, the target position
is selected randomly from a set of 512
positions, and remains constant during a single
trial. During each trial the network is allowed
to make twenty moves
Figure 4: Average distance for target with
periodic motion along
the x-axis
of the arm. Distance information and velocity
information of the target are used as inputs for
the network which outputs the three joints
rotations. The closest distance from the
endeffector to the target during a single trial is
used to calculate the percentage of distance the
arm moved towards the target. For example, if
the closest the end-effector gets to the target
during the evaluation is 20 units and the initial
distance of the target is 80 units, then the score
is (80-20)/80=0.75 . The percentage of
distance is a more accurate score of fitness
rather than absolute distance as some networks
may start closer to the target and get a high
fitness score which is undesirable. The final
fitness score for each network is averaged over
five different target positions. As the target
position is chosen randomly from a set of 512
positions, it is reasonable to claim that the best
networks have learned to effectively control
the arm. Ten runs of the stationary target task
were performed and 200 generations each
consisting of a population of size 100 were
evolved. Figure 3 depicts the minimum
distance of the target from the endeffector for
the champion of each generation averaged
over ten runs. Networks that can move the
end-effector to within ten units of the target
are found within 50 generations. It takes
another 100 generations to find networks that
can effectively move the end-effector to within
five units of the target at which point the
performance of the champion networks level
out. The best network that is evolved is
generally able to position its end-effector near
a stationary target.
Moving Targets:
The best networks evolved in the stationary
target task are used as the starting networks for
evolution in the moving target tasks. This
process is used to simulate how infants
incrementally learn tasks. The distance of the
end-effector from the target averaged over the
entire trial was used as the fitness function in
order to promote networks that tried to move
close to the moving target at each timestep.
Networks that can effectively position the end-
effector close to the moving targets are
evolved within 100 generations. Figures 4, 5
and 6 depict the average distance from the
moving target for
4 Discussion and Future Work
Figure 5: Average distance for target with
periodic motion along
the y-axis.
periodic motion along the x-axis, y-axis, z-axis
repectively. Fig 7 shows the average distance
from a target moving in a circular motion
along the x-axis and y-axis. It is easiest to
evolve controllers for targets which can be
tracked by moving only a single joint, as is
demonstrated by the controller evolved for
tracking a target moving in a circle. Evolving
networks that tracked moving targets by
controlling multiple joints proved to be more
difficult. When networks were evolved for
tracking a target that moved along the y-axis,
the best network initially tracked the target,
but as the target moves away from the end-
Conclusion:
In this paper Design concepts of the robotic
arm control system is propose. It includes the
mechanical and structural design and defining
parameters.
effector, the controller did not learn to move
its second joint to track target. The best
network evolved for a target that moved along
the z-axis showed similar results. However, it
was possible to evolve a network that could
control two of its joints in order to track a
target that moved along the x-axis. The best
network moved its first and second joints in
order to track the moving target. These results
illustrate that it is relatively easy to evolve a
controller that can track moving targets by
moving a single joint. It is much harder to
evolve networks that can move multiple joints
to track moving targets.
The neural network controllers that were
evolved simulate infants’ ability to generalize
in order to perform new actions, and infants’
ability to extrapolate the paths of moving
objects in order to effectively track them. In
the future, controller can be evolved that can
track targets with more complex motion.
These controllers would have to be able to
control multiple joints simulataneously in
order to track such targets. In order to better
understand human motor control systems, it is
also necessary to develop networks that can
control a more sophisticated arm that has a
larger number of degrees of freedom.
Understanding how artifical neural networks
are able to control a robotic arm helps in
understanding how humans control their arms
and also aids in developing more sophisticated
prosthetic devices. Researchers have
successfully developed a five degree of
freedom robotic arm that can be controlled by
a monkey (Taylor et al. 2002). The arm is
controlled by using activation levels of
neurons in the brain to control the arm. One of
the major obstacles in developing a prosthetic
arm for humans is designing algorithms that
can effectively control an arm with many
degrees of freedom using only a few neurons.
Future research on developing algorithms that
can simulate effective arm control with a few
neurons will help in developing more
sophisticated prosthetic devices.
References:
1.http://www.cs.utexas.edu/ftp/pub/AI-
Lab/tech-reports/UT-AI-TR-05-322.pdf
2.http://cegt201.bradley.edu/projects/proj20
05/vlsirac/deliverables/proposal.pd
3.http://www.jhu.edu/virtlab/robot1/robot.h
tm
4.http://www.societyofrobots.com/robot_ar
m_tutorial.shtml
5.http://robotclothes.com/insideout/archives
/2005/08/big_humanoid_ar.html
6.http://robots.net/ http://www.used-
robots.com/robot-education.php