Passivity‐based adaptive 3D visual servoing without depth and image velocity measurements for uncertain robot manipulators

Abstract

Summary In this work, we consider the 3D visual tracking problem for a robot manipulator with uncertainties in the kinematic and dynamic models. The visual feedback is provided by a fixed and uncalibrated camera located above the robot workspace. The Cartesian motion of the robot end effector can be separated into a 1D motion parallel to the optical axis of the camera and a 2D motion constrained on a plane orthogonal to this axis. Thus, the control design can be simplified, and the overall visual servoing system can be partitioned in two almost‐independent subsystems. Adaptive visual servoing schemes, based on a kinematic approach, are developed for image‐based look‐and‐move systems allowing for both depth and planar tracking of a reference trajectory, without using image velocity and depth measurements. In order to include the uncertain robot kinematics and dynamics in the presented solution, we develop a cascade control strategy based on an indirect/direct adaptive method. The stability and convergence properties are analyzed in terms of Lyapunov‐like functions and the passivity‐based formalism. Numerical simulations including hardware‐in‐the‐loop results, obtained with a robot manipulator and a web camera, are presented to illustrate the performance and feasibility of the proposed control scheme. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.