Neural Networks For Robotic Control

1. An overview of neural networks in control applications; 2. Artificial neural network based intelligent robot dynamic control; 3. Neural servo controller for position, force stabbing control of robotic manipulators; 4. Model-based adaptive neural structures for robotic control; 5. Intelligent co-ordination of multiple systems with neural networks; 6. Neural networks for mobile robot piloting control; 7. A neural network controller for the navigation and obstacle avoidance of a mobile robot; An ultrasonic 3-D robot vision system based on the statistical properties of artificial neural networks; Visual control of robotic manipulator based on neural networks; 10. Brain building for a biological robot; 11. Robustness of a distributed neural network controller for locomotion in a hexapod robot.

There has been great interest in "universal controllers" that mimic the functions of human processes to learn about the systems they are controlling on-line so that performance improves automatically. Neural network controllers are derived for robot manipulators in a variety of applications including position control, force control, link flexibility stabilization and the management of high-frequency joint and motor dynamics. The first chapter provides a background on neural networks and the second on dynamical systems and control. Chapter three introduces the robot control problem and standard techniques such as torque, adaptive and robust control. Subsequent chapters give design techniques and Stability Proofs For NN Controllers For Robot Arms, Practical Robotic systems with high frequency vibratory modes, force control and a general class of non-linear systems. The last chapters are devoted to discrete- time NN controllers. Throughout the text, worked examples are provided.

Introduction; Mathematical background; Dynamic modelling of robots; Structured network modelling of robots; Adaptive neural network control of robots; Neural network model reference adaptive control; Flexible joint robots; task space and force control; Bibliography; Computer simulation; Simulation software in C.

Neural Networks in Robotics is the first book to present an integrated view of both the application of artificial neural networks to robot control and the neuromuscular models from which robots were created. The behavior of biological systems provides both the inspiration and the challenge for robotics. The goal is to build robots which can emulate the ability of living organisms to integrate perceptual inputs smoothly with motor responses, even in the presence of novel stimuli and changes in the environment. The ability of living systems to learn and to adapt provides the standard against which robotic systems are judged. In order to emulate these abilities, a number of investigators have attempted to create robot controllers which are modelled on known processes in the brain and musculo-skeletal system. Several of these models are described in this book. On the other hand, connectionist (artificial neural network) formulations are attractive for the computation of inverse kinematics and dynamics of robots, because they can be trained for this purpose without explicit programming. Some of the computational advantages and problems of this approach are also presented. For any serious student of robotics, Neural Networks in Robotics provides an indispensable reference to the work of major researchers in the field. Similarly, since robotics is an outstanding application area for artificial neural networks, Neural Networks in Robotics is equally important to workers in connectionism and to students for sensormonitor control in living systems.

The book offers an insight on artificial neural networks for giving a robot a high level of autonomous tasks, such as navigation, cost mapping, object recognition, intelligent control of ground and aerial robots, and clustering, with real-time implementations. The reader will learn various methodologies that can be used to solve each stage on autonomous navigation for robots, from object recognition, clustering of obstacles, cost mapping of environments, path planning, and vision to low level control. These methodologies include real-life scenarios to implement a wide range of artificial neural network architectures. Includes real-time examples for various robotic platforms. Discusses real-time implementation for land and aerial robots. Presents solutions for problems encountered in autonomous navigation. Explores the mathematical preliminaries needed to understand the proposed methodologies. Integrates computing, communications, control, sensing, planning, and other techniques by means of artificial neural networks for robotics.

Complex industrial or robotic systems with uncertainty and disturbances are difficult to control. As system uncertainty or performance requirements increase, it becomes necessary to augment traditional feedback controllers with additional feedback loops that effectively "add intelligence" to the system. Some theories of artificial intelligence (AI) are now showing how complex machine systems should mimic human cognitive and biological processes to improve their capabilities for dealing with uncertainty. This book bridges the gap between feedback control and AI. It provides design techniques for "high-level" neural-network feedback-control topologies that contain servo-level feedback-control loops as well as AI decision and training at the higher levels. Several advanced feedback topologies containing neural networks are presented, including "dynamic output feedback", "reinforcement learning" and "optimal design", as well as a "fuzzy-logic reinforcement" controller. The control topologies areintuitive, yet are derived using sound mathematical principles where proofs of stability are given so that closed-loop performance can be relied upon in using these control systems. Computer-simulation examples are given to illustrate the performance.

This is the first book to focus on solving cooperative control problems of multiple robot arms using different centralized or distributed neural network models, presenting methods and algorithms together with the corresponding theoretical analysis and simulated examples. It is intended for graduate students and academic and industrial researchers in the field of control, robotics, neural networks, simulation and modelling.