EG-IPC

By using power ports for communication, Intrinsically Passive Control is particularly suited for standardisation of components and interfaces. For example, control schemes for serial manipulators can be easily tailored to any type of serial-link robotic manipulators, regardless of the number of links and configuration of joints. Currently, this advantage is not fully used and therefore we will formalise the generic IPC structure in a metamodel. In this metamodel, we will define functionality of components and interfaces for performing control tasks involving both single and multiple serial-link manipulators. The goal is that blocks are reusable for different variations of this general task, for example: for serial-link structures with different joint configurations and for different designs of Cartesian-space impedance controllers.

In the RobMoSys EG-IPC project we will extend the general Intrinsically Passive Control structure with a fault detection and isolation scheme by means of energy monitoring. Each component and communication line will be equipped with an energy guard. This results in an Energy-Guarded IPC. By doing so, a communication channel can be present between any two blocks, without losing passivity.

In addition the energy levels of the energy tanks, and information on the energy exchange between components, will be made available for the sake of fault monitoring by higher levels.

For the architecture / structure of these EG-IPC blocks, we will develop models, conforming to its metamodel that will be applied on industrial-linked use-cases to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.