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BACKHOES/EXCAVATORS FOR
CLOSED-LOOP COORDINATED CONTROL
Matthew E. Kontz ,1 Wayne J. Book
Abstract: Backhoes and excavators are an application for robotic technology. This
can be done in two ways: autonomous excavation and coordinated motion control
and/or haptic feedback. This analysis is motivated by haptic coordinated control
of the bucket using position and velocity signals from a dissimilar master device.
One issue that must be addressed is the effect of joint constraints imposed by the
hydraulic cylinders. The result of this not being addressed is demonstrated. Two
solutions are presented: a closed form graphically derived method based on the
position of the buckets wrist and a more general numerical optimization approach
that also penalizes bucket angle error. Copyright 2006 IFAC
Keywords: kinematics, Jacobian, haptic control, coordinated control, hydraulic
excavator, backhoe, constraints
1. INTRODUCTION
Today almost all commercial backhoes/excavators
are controlled by joystick commands from human
operators that are mapped directly into the jointspace of the manipulator. Due to the shortage
of skilled operators, another alternative to traditional human-machine-interfaces is to use coordinated or Cartesian control. This has been explored
with various levels of haptic feedback (Lawrence
and et al., 1995; Burks et al., 1992; Tafazoli and
et al., 2002; Papadopoulos et al., 2003; Krishnaswamy and Li, 2006). Human factors testing
by Wallerstainer et al. (1988; 1993) indicate that
using coordinated motion control can improve
the learning curve and allow novice operators to
achieve near expert levels of dexterity . For applications that dont require human decision making,
another alternative that has been explored is au1
This work is partially supported through HUSCO International, John Deere and the other supporting companies
of the Fluid Power and Motion Control Center at Georgia
Tech.
Excavator) which is interfaced with a PHANToM haptic interface (Frankel, 2004; Kontz and
et al., 2005a). A virtual real-time haptic simulator is under development that will be used
for algorithm development and human-in-the-loop
testing.
In Section 2 the basic unconstrained kinematic
analysis is summarized. The necessary constraints
are then described and methods to deal with these
constraints are added in Section 3. Results from
simulation are presented that demonstrate what
will happen when joint constraints are ignored or
implemented solely at the cylinder level.
2. UNCONSTRAINED KINEMATICS
a3
z(cm)
75
3+
a2
50
O3
25
0
0
O0 O1
a1
25
4+
50
O4
75
100
= 2 + 3 + 4
(3)
ac14 0
0
0
0 as24 as34 as4
Jd =
(4)
0 ac24 ac34 ac4
0
1
1
1
O2
100
50
125
x(cm)
150
25
175
y(cm)
Vcyl = Jd
(5)
T
represents the velocity
Where Vcyl = [v vr vz ]
is the vector of
in cylindrical coordinates and
joint angular velocities. It can be shown that the
closed form solution to the inverse Jacobian for
the distal case is
dd /ac14 0
0 0
0
ac3 as3 c1
0
ac23 as23 c2
0
ac2 as2 c3
Jd1 =
(6)
ac4 as2 + ac34 as23 ac24 as3
c1 = as3 ac4 as4 ac3
c2 = ac23 as4 as23 ac4
c3 = as34 a2 + as2 ac34
If a4 is set to 0 in Eqn. 4 & 6 this results in
the Jacobian and inverse Jacobian for the case
of proximal bucket control. A transform that is
a function of 1 can be used to transform this
2+3+4
P01 = a1 er
P02 = ac12 er + as2 ez
P03 = ac13 er + as23 ez
P04 = ac14 er + as24 ez
(1)
er = c1 ex + s1 ey
(2)
25
100
O2
z(cm)
3+
75
50
4+
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
200
r(cm)
P03
r3 er
r a cos()
er
0
= 0 =
z3 ez
z a sin()
ez
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
3 = 123
(13)
4 = + 2 3
(14)
C2
B
y2
A
2
C0
C1
Cylinder #2
2
2
R1A
+ R1B
yc22
2R1a R1B
2 = 01A A1B B12
A1B = acos
2
2
yc2
=
=
y c2
yc2
R1A R1B sin(A1B )
2
yc2
=
F c2
2
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
3. CONSTRAINTS
Enforcing software joint constraints that are
slightly less than the hard constraints inside the
cylinder has several advantages. The advantage
includes: better cylinder and component wear and
in general less system pressure since the cylinders
dont push on their stops. If pressure-based force
estimation is being used, software cylinder constraints also ensure that cylinders dont hit their
physical stops which would disrupt this estimation
(Tafazoli et al., 1999). If these constraints are
enforced at the cylinder level undesirable motion
will be induced because the assumptions used
to convert task-space coordinates to joint-space
coordinates breakdown when the constraints are
in place. This is because one or more of the joint
angle is being held constant. This affects both
250
Edge of Regions
Manipulator
Construction Lines
200
O3++
++
R0+
150
50
z(cm)
R+0
2+
100
3+
0
O
R00
50
100
O3
150
3+
200
R0+
L=
250
50
50
100
r(cm)
150
200
250
1
1
1
Wr r2 + Wz z 2 + W 2
2
2
2
(19)
150
50
des
3+
0
50
50
100
150
r (cm)
200
250
10
10
zaxis
z (cm)
100
10
10
230
230
240
raxis
z (cm)
v
cmd
Workspace Limits
Pathbackhoe
Pathhand
Haptic Force
70
des
||
Z(cm)
100
240
raxis
150
Manipulator
Workspace Limits
Construction Lines
Desired Position
300
zaxis
Manipulator
Workspace Limits
Construction Lines
Desired Position
60
50
3+
0
50
40
140
50
50
100
150
r (cm)
200
250
150
160
170
R(cm)
180
190
200
300
4. CONCLUSION
Two different algorithms are presented that could
be used for coordinated control of backhoes and
excavators. The closed-form graphically derived
solution is cleaner and is probably better suited
for proximal bucket control. On the other hand
the gradient descent method, or other numerical
techniques, is more general and probably better
suited for distal bucket control. In either case,
when joint constraints are active the velocity can
not be calculated using the full rank Jacobian.
Instead the desired task-space velocity must be
projected onto the unconstrained joint velocities.
In the case of position based haptic control this
implementation automatically adds haptic virtual
fixtures into the workspace. Not dealing with constraints in the task-space to Cartesian-space mappings results in unnatural performance since master motion outside of the workspace that is orthogonal to the edge of workspace will result in slave
motion tangent to the edge of the workspace.
REFERENCES
Aghili, Farhah (2005). A unified approach for
inverse and direct dynamics of constrained
multibody system boased on linear projection
operator: Application to control and simulation. IEEE Trans. Robotics.
Burks, B.L., S.M. Killough and D.H. Thompson (1992). Remote excavation using the
telerobotic small emplacement excavator. In:
Proc. Conf. Robotics and Remote Systems
Technolgy. Chicago,IL.
Frankel, Joseph G. (2004). Development of a Haptic Backhoe Testbed. MS thesis. The Georgia Institute of Technology. G.W. Woodruff
School of Mechanical Engineering.