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30 votes
Accepted

Robot never goes straight

I'm posting this as an answer because it is the answer. You can't. As @BendingUnit22 mentions, you are attempting "open loop" control. Noise and variations will mean that your robot will never ...
Chuck's user avatar
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17 votes

Position Control vs Velocity Control vs Torque Control

I'm going to take a slightly different tack to Chuck. What is Torque Control? For me, Torque Control is about performing a move with an explicitly defined torque, rather considering torque just the ...
Mark Booth's user avatar
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16 votes

Position Control vs Velocity Control vs Torque Control

Torque is analogous to force for rotating systems, in that: $$ F = m a \\ \tau = I \alpha \\ $$ Where $\alpha$ is angular acceleration and $I$ is moment of inertia. $m$ and $a$ are mass and linear ...
Chuck's user avatar
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14 votes

What's the difference between feedback and feedforward control?

In the simple models and block diagrams of control systems you will find in basic textbooks, they will show you a single diagram with a feedback section which uses measurements of the target parameter ...
hauptmech's user avatar
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11 votes
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Quadcopter PID Algorithm

The glaring issue I see at the moment is that you are forcing polarity on the I and D terms. In general, you are using a lot of sign checks, sign assignments, and conditional programming. None of that ...
Chuck's user avatar
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11 votes
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Control VS artificial intelligence?

In robotics, it all boils down to making the hardware(in essence, the actuator) perform the desired action. The basics of control systems tell us that the transfer function decides the relationship ...
Akshay Kumar's user avatar
10 votes
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How can we use the accelerometer for altitude estimation?

The barometer carried on the pixhawk has an altitude resolution of 10 cm. If that isn't enough, you could write a kalman filter that uses the accelerometer data in the prediction step and the ...
holmeski's user avatar
  • 1,853
10 votes
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How to create a Industrial Robotic arm controller?

Industrial robots (e.g. Kuka, ABB, Fanuc) use a control cabinet which has the following main components: Drive amplifiers (controllers): The drive amplifiers are responsible for the closed loop ...
50k4's user avatar
  • 6,652
10 votes
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What is the terminology used to describe control without measurement?

In control theory, we refer to this as "open-loop control", which emphasizes the lack of a feedback loop. The wikipedia article has several examples of open-loop control.
Mitchell Allain's user avatar
9 votes
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How to tune the PID parameters using Fuzzy Logic?

The paper Controlling of Quadrotor UAV Using a Fuzzy System for Tuning the PID Gains in Hovering Mode by E. Abbasi, M. J. Mahjoob explains how to tune PID gains with fuzzy logic. You can find many ...
acs's user avatar
  • 1,104
9 votes
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Multiple control loops with overlapping effects

Typically with a multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) system, a control engineer uses a state feedback controller. This style of controller leverages a state-space model of the system and generally ...
Chuck's user avatar
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9 votes
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How do I determine the required encoder resolution for a control system?

First I would question your math that got you to the 12b sensor. If you have a $dy$ of 1 mm over an arm that is $r = 1$ m long, then $\sin(\theta) = dy/r \rightarrow \theta = \mbox{asin}(dy/r)$. If ...
Chuck's user avatar
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9 votes
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How to approach any advanced control problem in robotics

Models. If you want to get good at control engineering, get good at modeling. If you want to impress a controls professor, get good at modeling. Models are how you're going to do 90 percent of your ...
Chuck's user avatar
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9 votes
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Impedance Control vs Position Control

In classical position control, the feedback controller only cares about the position error and is tuned to minimize it. This is done by using very high gains, i.e. if there is even a small position ...
Kapt. Brackbier's user avatar
8 votes

What is $\alpha \sin(\theta) + \beta \frac{d \theta}{d t}$ in the inverted pendulum problem?

The function $f$ comes from the equation of motion for the inverted pendulum problem (inverted pendulum alone, not including the motion of the wheeled platform). If you consider your figure but ignore ...
Brian Lynch's user avatar
  • 1,377
8 votes

Using genetic algorithm for tuning controllers

Genetic algorithms are a machine learning technique to remove the need for a user to 'fine tune' a system, and instead allow a computer to figure out how to tune the system. The benefits of this ...
beeedy's user avatar
  • 81
8 votes
Accepted

Can a state matrix have a row of zeros?

Yes, a state matrix with zero rows and/or columns makes sense and is viable. It typically signify pure integrators in the system. In the example you give, $$ \dot{v} = -\frac{b}{m} v +\frac{1}{m} u ...
Christo's user avatar
  • 385
8 votes

Motion Planning vs. Control

There is a saying in software engineering which states that your company structure is reflected in your software architecture (I cannot recall the exact phrase). This is true for a robot control ...
50k4's user avatar
  • 6,652
8 votes
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Cartesian Velocity Control between Two 3D Poses

You essentially want to find the time derivative of a linear interpolation between two rotations. The easiest way to obtain this would probably to convert the rotation matrix between the two ...
fibonatic's user avatar
  • 941
7 votes

What is the learning (control) algorithm inside Cubli?

You should start by reading their academic papers: M. Muehlebach, G. Mohanarajah, and R. D'Andrea, Nonlinear Analysis and Control of a Reaction Wheel-based 3D Inverted Pendulum, in Proc. Conference ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 5,825
7 votes

What's the difference between feedback and feedforward control?

It is arguable what is called reactive and what is not... however what is measured by sensors and what information the controller possesses is not arguable. In feedback control, the system's outputs ...
50k4's user avatar
  • 6,652
7 votes

Explanation of Quadcopter Dynamics, Components and Control

A couple things, the first is that the controller does not really care what the "real" values are. Everything is relative, if the controller sees that it is sinking it will increase the thrust until ...
Mark Omo's user avatar
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7 votes
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PID control: zero out integral on error sign change?

Generally, in a well-tuned PID, most of the job is done by the P term, which is responsible for driving PV to SP. Then, D and I serve as corrections: the D term regulates the profile as of how we ...
Ugo Pattacini's user avatar
7 votes

Control VS artificial intelligence?

I think, it is easier to explain these areas in terms of guidance, navigation and control layers for an autonomous robot. Let's stay an autonomous robot is commanded to reach a desired goal position ...
Octavius's user avatar
  • 367
6 votes
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Relation between pole placement and marginal stability?

You are most likely running into problems with the maximum time step in your simulation. This phenomenon is known as stiffness, where your equations of motion are highly sensitive to the size of the ...
Brian Lynch's user avatar
  • 1,377
6 votes

Robot never goes straight

Since the open-closed loop issue is already mentioned, I will give a comment to the "I once tried to run a dc-motor without a load". Yes you might damage your motor with this but you can also damage ...
TobiasK's user avatar
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6 votes
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How can I apply different control approach without having a state space model?

Many control strategegies (PID is not neceserily one of these) are computing some of their parameters from your system. If you do not want to model your system yourself (or play around with it until ...
50k4's user avatar
  • 6,652
6 votes
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Extended Kalman Filter in robotics - Worth it?

The Kalman filter is an optimal linear filter in the presence of Gaussian noise. It is optimal in the sense that it minimizes the mean-squared error. This means that the covariance of the estimated ...
Parker Lusk's user avatar
6 votes
Accepted

PID and Kalman filters

There isn't really a relationship between them, unless you're asking how the dynamics feed each other when combined into a system. If that's the case, then I would suggest maybe starting with a ...
Chuck's user avatar
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