In this paper, a stereo vision 3D position measurement system for a three-axial pneumatic parallel mechanism robot arm is presented. The stereo vision 3D position measurement system aims to measure the 3D trajectories of the end-effector of the robot arm. To track the end-effector of the robot arm, the circle detection algorithm is used to detect the desired target and the SAD algorithm is used to track the moving target and to search the corresponding target location along the conjugate epipolar line in the stereo pair. After camera calibration, both intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the stereo rig can be obtained, so images can be rectified according to the camera parameters. Thus, through the epipolar rectification, the stereo matching process is reduced to a horizontal search along the conjugate epipolar line. Finally, 3D trajectories of the end-effector are computed by stereo triangulation. The experimental results show that the stereo vision 3D position measurement system proposed in this paper can successfully track and measure the fifth-order polynomial trajectory and sinusoidal trajectory of the end-effector of the three- axial pneumatic parallel mechanism robot arm.

Pitch Control plays a significant role for a large wind turbine. This study investigates a novel robust hydraulic pitch control system of a large wind turbine. The novel hydraulic pitch control system is driven by a novel high efficiency and high response hydraulic servo system. The pitch controller, designed by two degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) motion control with feedback linearization, is developed to enhance the controllability and stability of the pitch control system. Furthermore, the full-scale testbed of the hydraulic pitch control system of a large wind turbine is developed for practically experimental verification. Besides, the wind turbine simulation software FAST is used to analyze the motion of the blade which results are given to the testbed as the disturbance load command. The 2-DOF pitch controller contains a feedforward controller with feedback linearization theory to overcome the nonlinearities of the system and a feedback controller to improve the system robustness for achieving the disturbance rejection. Consequently, the novel hydraulic pitch control system shows excellent path tracking performance in the experiments. Moreover, the robustness test with a simulated disturbance load generated by FAST is performed to validate the reliability of the proposed pitch control system.

This study aims to develop a X-Y dual-axial intelligent servo pneumatic-piezoelectric hybrid actuator for position control with high response, large stroke (250 mm, 200 mm) and nanometer accuracy (20 nm). In each axis, the rodless pneumatic actuator serves to position in coarse stroke and the piezoelectric actuator compensates in fine stroke. Thus, the overall control systems of the single axis become a dual-input single-output (DISO) system. Although the rodless pneumatic actuator has relatively larger friction force, it has the advantage of mechanism for multi-axial development. Thus, the X-Y dual-axial positioning system is developed based on the servo pneumatic-piezoelectric hybrid actuator. In addition, the decoupling self-organizing fuzzy sliding mode control is developed as the intelligent control strategies. Finally, the proposed novel intelligent X-Y dual-axial servo pneumatic-piezoelectric hybrid actuators are implemented and verified experimentally.

This study aims to develop the application of pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) for a 2-degrees of freedom (2-DOF) lower limb rehabilitation assistance training robot system. The proposed lower limb robot system can be divided into two axes, such as hip joint and knee joint. Each joint contains a pneumatic proportional valve to control a single-PAM with a torsion spring to simulate joint extension and flexion bionics characteristics and achieve a human-like 2-DOF lower limb robot system design and experimental prototype system. By analyzing the kinematics, the derived kinematics conforms to the lower limb motion pattern of the moving human body. Single PAM is difficult to achieve high accuracy control due to the different characteristics between extension and contraction. In our previous research, dual PAMs have been developed to drive a rotational joint which can achieve better control accuracy, however, cannot be suitable for multiaxial robotic design. The mechanism will become very complex and result in lower response and control accuracy. Thus, in this article the novel concept using single PAM with torsion spring was proposed to drive a joint to achieve two-axial robotic design. It has the advantage of multiaxial mechanism design, but the difficulty in joint control due to motion nonlinearity between contraction and extension. The torsion spring can improve motion nonlinearity between contraction and extension partly. Thus, the joint controller using adaptive self-organizing fuzzy sliding mode controller (ASOFSMC) was developed to solve this problem and achieve the required control performance for the joint angle positioning and gait planning control. Through the novel combination of single PAM, torsion spring, and the ASOFSMC joint controller with novel mechanism design and controller design, the two-axial robot mechanism designs and achieves the required control accuracy. The experimental results show that ASOFSMC can effectively control a 2-DOF lower limb robot system, and can modify fuzzy rules online, and adapt to rapid changes in the external environment and load to improve system control performance. The results prove that the proposed innovative single-PAM with a torsion spring and the control strategy can achieve the performance of 2-DOF lower limb rehabilitation assistance training robot system.

This study aimed to develop a novel 3D parallel mechanism robot driven by three vertical-axial pneumatic actuators with a stereo vision system for path tracking control. The mechanical system and the control system are the primary novel parts for developing a 3D parallel mechanism robot. In the mechanical system, a 3D parallel mechanism robot contains three serial chains, a fixed base, a movable platform and a pneumatic servo system. The parallel mechanism are designed and analyzed first for realizing a 3D motion in the X-Y-Z coordinate system of the robot’s end-effector. The inverse kinematics and the forward kinematics of the parallel mechanism robot are investigated by using the Denavit-Hartenberg notation (D-H notation) coordinate system. The pneumatic actuators in the three vertical motion axes are modeled. In the control system, the Fourier series-based adaptive sliding-mode controller with H_∞ tracking performance is used to design the path tracking controllers of the three vertical servo pneumatic actuators for realizing 3D path tracking control of the end-effector. Three optical linear scales are used to measure the position of the three pneumatic actuators. The 3D position of the end-effector is then calculated from the measuring position of the three pneumatic actuators by means of the kinematics. However, the calculated 3D position of the end-effector cannot consider the manufacturing and assembly tolerance of the joints and the parallel mechanism so that errors between the actual position and the calculated 3D position of the end-effector exist. In order to improve this situation, sensor collaboration is developed in this paper. A stereo vision system is used to collaborate with the three position sensors of the pneumatic actuators. The stereo vision system combining two CCD serves to measure the actual 3D position of the end-effector and calibrate the error between the actual and the calculated 3D position of the end-effector. Furthermore, to verify the feasibility of the proposed parallel mechanism robot driven by three vertical pneumatic servo actuators, a full-scale test rig of the proposed parallel mechanism pneumatic robot is set up. Thus, simulations and experiments for different complex 3D motion profiles of the robot end-effector can be successfully achieved. The desired, the actual and the calculated 3D position of the end-effector can be compared in the complex 3D motion control.