Founders Day Special Issue

DEVELOPMENT OF AN ADVANCED SERVO MANIPULATOR FOR

REMOTE HANDLING IN NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS
D.D. Ray
Ray,, K. Jayarajan and Manjit Singh
Division of Remote Handling and Robotics

Mr
echnical
Mr.. D.D. Ray is the recipient of the DAE Scientific and TTechnical
Excellence Award for the year 2008

Abstract
Remotisation plays a vital role in all nuclear installations. Availability of reliable remote handling gadgets in nuclear
installations ensures higher productivity as well as safety. Division of Remote Handling & Robotics has recently developed
an Advanced Servo Manipulator (ASM) based on in house mechanical design and indigenous drives and controllers. The
ASM represents a new generation of remote handling technology with features like Force Feedback, Indexing, Soft Joint
limits, Artificial Force Feedback etc. This paper discusses about the design and implementation of the control system for
the ASM. This system is based on a tightly coupled distributed digital micro-processing technique. The ASM will ensure
higher safety, productivity, as well as better operator assistance.
Index Terms - Control system, Manipulator, Motor drives, Position control, Remote handling.
Introduction
Remotisation plays a vital role in all nuclear installations.
Plants using thorium-based fuels introduce additional
problems in remote handling, due to build up of
radioactivity in the U-232 decay chain. In such plants,
operators can handle the material only behind thick shields,

adopted and both arms have been made identical. Fig.1

shows the ASM in operation and Table I gives the general
specifications.
The ASM represents a new generation of remote handling
technology with advanced features like Force Feedback,

using reliable and advanced remote handling tools. In

this context, Division of Remote Handling and Robotics
has recently developed an Advanced Servo Manipulator
(ASM) based on in house mechanical design and
indigenous drives and controllers. The ASM consists of
two identical electrically connected articulated arms: the
master arm and the slave arm. The slave arm is usually
kept in remote hazardous environment and the master
arm in a safe operating area. As the operator holds and
moves the handgrip of the master arm, the gripper of the
slave arm reproduces his hand movements, thus
performing the required task. In this model the max. reach
of the slave arm is kept within the reach of the operators
hand. Hence a symmetrical design approach has been

Fig. 1: Photograph of ASM in operation

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Table I: General Specifications of Asm

Founders Day Special Issue

controllers communicates with the corresponding Master

and Slave motor drives over dedicated RS422 links.

Degrees of freedom

Actuators and sensors

Payload

25 kg (at all positions)

ASM uses Brush-less AC Servomotors of wash down duty

Maximum reach

1.2 m

Gripper opening

100 mm

with inbuilt fail safe brake as mechanical power sources.

This motor has good linear torque-current relationship,

Force Feedback ratio

0 to1 with upper limit

at 8.0 kg

Indexing, Soft Joint limits, Artificial Force Feedback etc.

This development involves many challenging tasks in
electrical, electronics, control and software areas.

which is essential for accurate force feedback to the

operator. The motor also has inbuilt Resolver to sense its
rotor position and the position information is used for
electronic commutation. The position control loop in the
motor drive also uses the Resolver signal for position
feedback. Multi-turn potentiometer mounted on each joint
provide absolute joint angle, which is used for sensing
the load position as well as initializing the Resolver reading.

This article discusses about the design and implementation

Motors are radiation tolerant.

of the control system for the ASM. This system has been
designed to support all the advanced features mentioned

Hardware implementation

above and to have sufficient flexibility for future

enhancements. It is based on a tightly coupled distributed

All master motor drive hardware and software are identical.

Likewise all slave motor drive hardware and software are

digital micro-processing technique.

identical. DIP switch settings configure them for respective

joints. Common software across drives reduces the

Control system design

The ASM is a non-linear, multi-axes and coupled system.
It has to be controlled in real time for position trajectory
as well as force trajectory. It consists of operator interface,
coordination computer, joint controller and motor drives.
Fig. 2 shows the architecture of the control system. The
coordination computer communicates with the joint
controllers over a shared RS485 link while the joint

amount of software. This architecture allows the necessary

quick data transfer between the master drive and the slave
drive. Data sampling, control and information transfer
are accomplished in real time.
A rack houses the entire control system. Radiation tolerant
cables connect the control system to the actuators and
sensors. The maximum length of each cable connecting
the control system to the slave arm can be 100 meters.

Fig. 2: Architecture of Control system

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Each joint of the ASM arm is driven by a separate

servomotor and drive. Fig. 3 shows the photograph of
the motor drive and Fig. 4 shows the functional block
diagram. The entire hardware is fabricated and assembled
as two separate boards, one with power electronics and
servo controller with necessary Opto-isolation, while the
other one houses the micro-controller, Resolver to Digital
(R/D) Conversion circuit, brake control and load position
sensing circuit. The second PCB is mounted on the first
one as a piggyback, without overlapping the power section
for ease of debugging and avoiding electromagnetic
interference. There are fourteen drives for seven pairs of
master slave motors in the system. Each motor drive
collects data and controls the corresponding joint. Table
II gives the overall specification of the drive.

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Motor Drive
Table II: Servo Drive Specifications

Position Loop Update Rate

500 Hz.

Velocity Loop Update Rate

5/10 KHz.

Current Loop computation time

6s

PWM carrier frequency

70 KHz

Continuous output current

5 A(750W)

Overload output current

15 A

Max. Serial communication Speed

115.2 KBPS

module. The shunt regulator dissipates the excess energy

stored in the DC bus capacitors during regeneration. As a
precautionary measure, the dc bus current in the forward

Power Section

path is sensed using a sensing resistor and whenever this

current exceeds a preset value, a signal is generated as

Fig. 5 shows the power section of the motor drive. It

consists of a Bridge rectifier,, a shunt regulator and a IGBT

input to the servo control IC for switching off all PWM

outputs and hence all IGBTs. Simultaneously the onboard
micro controller 8051F120 switches off 24V DC supply
to the brake of the servo motor, thereby activating the
brake. A surge suppressor is also added in the forward
path of the DC bus to limit the inrush current during
power on. The currents in the two output lines V & W are
sensed using sensing resistors and the voltage signals from
these resistors are fed to a special IC for converting them

Fig. 3: Photograph of Motor Drive

Fig. 4: Functional Block Diagram of Motor Drive.

Fig. 5: Power Section of the Motor Drive

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to isolated PWM signals. These PWM signals are fed to

the servo control IC which internally converts them to
current values and uses the values in the FOC algorithm
implemented in the IC. The servo control IC introduces a
dead band within the PWM signals of the upper and lower
IGBTs to prevent device failure due to shoot through.
Position Control
The position control is based on Proportional + Integration
+ Derivative (PID) control. Fig.6 shows the block diagram.
The left side block in Fig.6 is implemented in software,
while the right side block is built into the servo control IC

Fig. 7: Resolver to Digital Conversion

and the parameters in this block are programmable. The

output of the left side block is the computed velocity to
achieve the position. The specified position is compared
with the current position and error is amplified with
proportional gain term KP. Similarly the average position
error is amplified by the integral gain term KINT. To improve
the tracking with respect to input position, specified
velocity (d(specified position)/dt) is fed forward with a
gain of KVFF. The current velocity is fed back with a gain
of KvFE to stabilize and prevent position overshoot.
Resolver to Digital Conversion
Since the servo motors of the ASM have built-in Resolvers,
a Resolver to Digital (R/D) Conversion IC has been used in
the motor drive to convert the Resolver output into
equivalent encoder pulses as the servo control IC accepts
only digital inputs. Fig. 7 shows the block diagram of
the Resolver to Digital conversion circuit. The clock
generator provides the reference signal to the resolver,
while the position modulated outputs of the resolver are

decoded by the R/D conversion IC to provide absolute

encoder data. The LSBs of the encoder data are used
along with the busy signal to generate incremental encoder
pulses A,B, and Z as required by the servo control IC for
position input.
Micro-controller
The micro-controller 8051F120 is the absolute master
controller of the system. It can run at 100MIPS and has
number of peripherals as timers, UARTS, watchdog timer
and no. of I/O ports. The firmware loaded into the device
initialises the hardware, does fault monitoring,
communicates with the host and implements the position
control loop and drive control. The watchdog timer is
used to activate watchdog reset, in case the software loses
control. The communication with the host is implemented
as server and client, where host as server initiates the
communication with command and drive as client

Fig. 6: Position Control

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responding with status. In addition, an analog

potentiometer interface is provided for obtaining absolute
position of the load since resolver can provide only the
position of the motor shaft and not of the load, which is
coupled at the output of the gearbox. Fig. 8 shows the
interfaces to 8051F120.

Fig. 8: Micro-controller Interface

Fig. 10: Keypad in Master Handgrip

Joint Controller
There are seven joint controllers, one for each masterslave joint pair of the ASM. A joint controller exchanges
information between the servo drives of the corresponding
joints in real time. In addition to this, it supports indexing,
joint alignment, brake control and fault protection. Fig. 9
shows the hardware block diagram of the joint controller.

menu driven GUI is also used as operator interface in

addition to the keypad. Through the GUI, the operator is
able to select the mode of operation and view the joint
angles of the arms, indexed angles and the status of various
settings. Depending on the mode of operation, the
necessary operator interface device to be activated or deactivated.
Coordinating Computer
An Industrial PC is used as coordinating computer in the
ASM. It uses RS422 port to communicate with the operator
keyboard and fiber optic cable to communicate with the

Fig. 9: Joint Controller

Operator Interface
The input devices for the ASM are the master arm, master
key pad, keyboard and mouse. Output devices for the
operator are slave arm, monitor and speaker. Fig. 10 shows
the photograph of the keypad which is mounted on the
master handgrip. It has keys for selecting force feedback
ratio, torque limits, individual joint for indexing and starting

joint controllers. Additionally, this computer displays the

operator interface GUI window as well as joint parameters
of the master and slave arms, status of the settings like
brake on/ff, gripper lock on/off, indexing on/off etc. and
error conditions if any. Fig. 11 displays one typical screen
of the GUI. The administrator can change the parameters
of the servo loops and set the position, torque and speed
limits of all the joints from this computer through a separate
GUI screen. Audio alarm is provided to indicate fault
annunciation of the system.

indexing motions in forward and reverse directions. Toggle

keys are provided for applying/releasing brake on all joints

Software Features

and locking/unlocking the slave gripper. Operator can use

the keypad with his thumb while holding the handgrip. A

software of the ASM.

The following features have been embedded in the

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Fig. 11: Screenshot of the GUI on the coordinating computer

Master Slave Mode

In this mode, operator holds and moves the master
handgrip. The slave gripper, which is in the remote area,
follows the movement of the master handgrip executing
the necessary tasks. The primary role of the control system
is to match the angles of all slave joints to corresponding
master angles at every instant by operating the slave motors
in the position control mode. Fig. 12 shows the typical
trajectory of one slave joint with reference to the
corresponding master joint.

Fig. 12: Master Slave Follower

Force Feedback Mode

In this mode, the slave motor current (which is
proportional to the slave motor torque) is taken as an
indication of slave load. This is applied on the
corresponding master motor, which is operated in the
torque control mode after necessary scaling and filtering.
The direction of the master motor torque is always opposite
to the torque generated by the corresponding slave motor.
The master arm converts its motor torques into force,
providing force feedback to the operator who is holding

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the handgrip. The operator can change the Force Feedback

Ratio(FFR) from zero to one. Fig. 13 shows the measured
slave torque and applied master torque of the ASM. Initially
FFR is 0 and no current is applied to the master. FFR is 0.5
in the later part.
Soft Joint Limits and Artificial Force Feedback
The master arm and the slave arm can have independent
joint limits. The joint limit settings will prevent slave joint

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to move beyond the set limits, even if the operator tries

to move the corresponding master joint. An audio alarm
indicates whether any joint of the master arm or slave
arm has reached its limit. In the force feedback mode,
the operator gets a repelling force on his hand whenever
any master or slave joint approaches its limit. This artificial
force resists the operator from moving closer to the limit
thereby avoiding internal collision of mechanical parts.
Indexing Mode
In this mode, the operator can rotate selected slave joints
without rotating their corresponding master joints. It helps
the operator to control the manipulator sitting in a

Fig. 13: Measured Slave torque v/s Applied

Master torque

comfortable posture. After indexing the operator can

continue master slave operation in the mismatched
positions of master and slave joints. Only the three major
axes of the ASM has been provided with indexing feature.
Performance Evaluation
In order to test the overall performance of the motor drives,
few drives were connected to a motor and the position
and speed inputs were fed from computer generated
profiles. The motor shaft position and speed were recorded
and plotted against the input position and speed
respectively. The position and speed errors were also
computed and plotted. Figs. 14 to 17 shows the plots
generated from one such test for speed input of 100rpm
and acceleration of 500rpm/sec at no load.

Fig. 14: Master Slave Position

Conclusion
The development of the ASM as described above has
resulted in achieving a milestone in remote handling
technology thereby ensuring higher safety & productivity.
The electronics hardware are undergoing qualification tests
as per IEC 61800-2 & 61800-3 standards. The development
strategy was based on in-house mechanical design and
indigenously developed control hardware and software.
The ASM has flexible and expandable features for further
enhancement and customization. The futuristic concepts
like teach & playback mode, autonomous mode,
constrained motion, tremor removal etc. are also under
development. These features will help the slave arm to
perform autonomously without the intervention of the

Fig. 15: Master Slave Speed

operator resulting in better operator assistance.

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3. H.L. Martin, W.R. Hamel, S.M. Killough and R.F.

Spille, Control and Electronic Subsystems for the
Advanced Servo Manipulator, in Proc. 1984 National
Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Handling
in Hostile Environments, pp. 417-424.
4. D. Jouve & D. Bui, High Performance Servo Drive
Design for Distributed Motion Control, in Proc.
June19-21, 2001 PCIM conference, Nurnberg, pp.16.
Books
Fig. 16: Position Error

5. George Ellis, Control System Design Guide, 3rd

Edition, San Diego: Elsevier Inc.2004.
Technical Reports
6. H.L. Martin, P.E. Satterlee and B.J. Bolfing,
Distributed Digital Processing for Servo Manipulator
Control, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, US.
7. Masanori Suzuki, Norihiko Ozaki, Yoshiaki Ichikawa,
Masuo Kasai, Kanji Kato and Takeshi Uno, A Bilateral
Servo Manipulator for Remote Maintenance in
Nuclear Facilities, Energy Research Laboratory and
Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd., Japan.

Fig. 17: Speed Error

8. bpra 073: Field oriented Control of 3-phase AC

Motors, Texas Instruments application note.
9. Aengus Murray, Transforming Motion: Field Oriented
Control of AC motors, International Rectifier, EDN,
Sept. 27, 2007.

References
Papers from Conference Proceedings
(Published):
1. W.R. Hamel and M.J. Feldman, The Advancement
of Remote Systems Technology: Past perspectives and
Future plans, in Proc. 1984 National Topical
Meeting on Robotics and Remote Handling in Hostile
Environments, pp. 11-23.
2. D.P. Kuban and H.L. Martin, An Advanced Remotely
Maintainable Force Reflecting Ser vo Manipulator
Concept, in Proc. 1984 National Topical Meeting
on Robotics and Re mote Handling in Hostile
Environments, pp. 407-415.

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