The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Multi-degree of freedom telemanipulation in an unstructured environment
Author:	Ramirez, Diego
View Online:	njit-etd2007-011 (ix, 64 pages ~ 4.7 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Biomedical Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Biomedical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Foulds, Richard A. (Committee chair) Adamovich, Sergei (Committee member) Simone, Lisa K. (Committee member)
Date:	2007-01
Keywords:	Telemanipulation Scalable movements
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	Two approaches to 6-degrees-of-freedom telemanipulation that will accommodate different needs and skills of potential users with congenital amputation, arthrogryposis, muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy were developed. One method uses scalable movements (i.e. position and orientation), and the second employs isometric forces and torques without movement. The scalable position approach employs a 6-degress-of-freedom electromechanical stylus whose joint orientations are used by the controlling computer to determine the position and orientation of the robot's end effector via inverse kinematics or by one-to-one matching of the stylus joint angles with those of the manipulator. The isometric method uses the measured forces and torques to define velocities in X-Y-Z and in pitch, roll and yaw of the end effector. The latter is accomplished using the pseudo-inverse Jacobian to define a rate resolved controller, with a novel form of damping to minimize instabilities at singularities. Both forms of telemanipulation have been implemented using Matlab and Simulink. A fully interactive, stereo VRML model of a commercial robot has been developed using the Matlab VRML Toolbox. This robot model is driven in real-time to allow evaluation of the telemanipulation methods, and serve as an eventual user-training environment.