Undergraduate Research in Robotics and Automation

at the University of Illinois at Urbana{Champaign 

Mark W. Spong
Department of General Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana{Champaign
104 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, Ill. 61801

Abstract
This paper describes a new course, Undergraduate Research in Robotics and Automation,
developed by the author in the Department of General Engineering at the University of Illinois
at Urbana{Champaign. This course is intended to give undergraduate engineering students an
exposure to the university research process which forms such a substantial part of the lives
of their professors and graduate teaching assistants but which has been largely inaccessible
and poorly understood by undergraduates. The course is built around the robotics package
CimStation from Silma, Inc. Three case studies are discussed from the initial oerings of the
course. A fourth project is included from the Department of General Engineering Senior Design
Project course to show the additional usefulness of CimStation beyond our robotics course.

1 Introduction
The University of Illinois is one of the premier research institutions in the nation. However,
most undergraduate students nish their degrees each year and leave the University without
experiencing the research process in action. At the same time the demands of research on fac-
ulty time often con ict with the desire for more interaction with undergraduates and better
undergraduate instruction. The experience of the author with the National Science Foundation
This research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation's Instrumentation and Laboratory
Improvement Program (ILI) under grant IRI-9216428 and by the College of Engineering Manufacturing Engineering
Program.

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program on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) convinced him that undergradu-
ates represent a largely untapped pool of considerable talent on campus. Partly to address these
issues, the author has developed a new course, GE 293 \Undergraduate Research in Robotics
and Automation," in the Department of General Engineering at the University of Illinois. The
purpose of this course is to give senior undergraduate students the opportunity to work on indi-
vidual research projects under the direction of a faculty member. The course is built around the
CimStation computer aided design and analysis package for robotics from Silma, Incorporated of
Cupertino, California. This paper describes the initial experiences of the author in this course.
Four case studies are presented. The rst three involve the use of CimStation to model and
analyze a robot manipulator and carry out an application. The fourth project was performed
as part of a senior design project, in conjunction with an industrial partner, Genesis Systems,
Inc. of Davenport, Iowa.

2 Overview of the Course

The course GE 293, \Undergraduate Research in Robotics and Automation," requires both one{
on{one interaction between the student and faculty member and considerable independence,
initiative, and creativity on the part of the student. For these reasons the class size has been
limited initially to six students per semester, with senior standing and GE 389, Robot Dynamics
and Control, as prerequisites. The model for the course is the mentor/student model commonly
used in graduate research and education. The rst week of the semester is spent identifying a
\research topic" in the eld of robotics and automation that is of mutual interest to the student
and the instructor and that can be carried out in one semester. The student is then expected
to spend the remainder of the semester engaged in his or her research. Individual meetings
between the student and professor are held weekly and bi-weekly meetings of the entire group
are arranged to discuss problems, present preliminary results, and provide for feedback. The
course grade is based on a written \thesis" of about 10{30 pages and an oral \thesis defense"
in front of the class.
The course is built around CimStation, which is available in the College of Engineering
Robotics and Automation Laboratory. CimStation was obtained through an NSF Instrumen-
tation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) grant with matching funds from General Motors
Corporation through the College of Engineering Manufacturing Engineering Program.
A successful engineering research project should eventually lead to a \product" that is mar-
ketable in some sense. As the primary \market" for our Robotics and Automation Laboratory
consists of students enrolled in robotics courses, the students in GE 293 are strongly encouraged
to develop from their research projects a product (usually software) that can be used by later

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students in the basic robotics courses. The rst three projects described below have been partic-
ularly successful in the \legacy" left to future students. The fourth project is notable for having
achieved success in the real world marketplace. This project, an actual industrial project, has
led to a commercially successful product for the sponsor.

3 Overview of CimStation
SILMA R CimStation and its supporting Robotics packages is an interactive software environ-
ment for the design, simulation, analysis and programming of automated workcells, mechanical
devices and robots. Currently we have version 4.5.1 installed on Sun Sparc2 workstations. Our
CimStation package provides:
 tools for three-dimensional workcell layout for robots, end{eectors, xtures, parts, etc.
 three{dimensional CAD models of parts
 direct interface to CAD packages such as AutoCAD
 a Metakinematics package to create robots
 a Dynamics package to model and simulate robot dynamics and control
 a Calibration package for robot calibration
 a movie generator to capture and playback animations of robot motion simulations
 SIL I/O postprocessor to generate VAL II code from SIL programs
CimStation programs are written in the SIL language and may be generated using Cim-
Station's extensive menu system or by writing programs directly in SIL. C code may also be
incorporated into SIL applications.

4 Case Studies
Among the equipment currently housed in the College of Engineering Robotics and Automation
Laboratory are four Rhino XR{3 educational robots, two Rhino SCARA robots, two PUMA
260 industrial manipulators, a UMI RTX robot manipulator, a local area network of PC's,
and a cluster of SUN Sparc2 workstations. Three of the SUN workstations are equipped with
24 bit graphics accelerator boards and CimStation licenses. In this section we outline four
undergraduate research projects that utilized CimStation. The rst three were completed during
the rst two semesters that GE 293 was oered. The fourth project was performed as part of
the Department of General Engineering Senior Design Project course, GE 242. This project was
industrially sponsored and is included here to show the additional opportunities that CimStation
provides us beyond our specic robotics and automation courses.

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 Figure 1: Cimstation Menu Interface

4.1 CimStation|PUMA 260 Interface

The purpose of this project [6] was to model the PUMA 260 robot in CimStation and develop
programs to control the actual arms using the Silma's Sil I/O software for VAL II. The Sil
I/O is a structured post processor that automatically generates VAL II code from CimStation's
programming language, SIL, that can be downloaded and run on the PUMA's controller. At
the time the project began, Silma's library of robots did not include the PUMA 260 nor did
our laboratory have the Sil I/O for VAL II. Therefore, the CimStation model of the PUMA
260 created in this project, together with our model of the RTX robot discussed below, were
provided to Silma in exchange for their Sil I/O as part of their University Partnership Program.
The steps involved in this project were: to generate an accurate model of the PUMA 260
and its workspace from drawings and from measurements of the arm, to calibrate the PUMA
model to accurately represent the actual arm and its workspace, to program the model using

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CimStation and generate programs in SIL Language code, to translate a program from SIL to
VAL II using the SIL I/O, and to drive the actual PUMA 260 with the translated VAL II code.
The actual motion of the arm was then compared with the simulated motion and the CimStation
model was rened to compensate for inconsistencies between the modeled and the actual robot.
CimStation allows the generation of models using standard elementary 3D graphics shapes,
such as cones, cylinders, spheres, etc. It is important to create an accurate and detailed model
of the robot for purposes of calibration, collision detection and aesthetics. When such detail is
desired, is useful to generate accurate drawings using a separate CAD system, such as AutoCAD
and import them into CimStation. CimStation's support of the Initial Graphics Exchange
Specication (IGES) facilitated this exchange of data.
An important features of CimStation that proved useful in this project is CimStation's
calibration package that allows adjustment of the robot model's kinematic parameters based on
measurements of the actual arm. The test application used in this project was to program the
CimStation model and the actual arm to hold a felt tipped marker and draw geometric shapes on
paper. Without careful calibration this application could not be done successfully. Small errors
between the simulated and actual robots result in errors in the end{eector location sucient
to either cause damage to the marker in some instances or to cause the marker to lose contact
with the paper in other instances. After careful calibration the actual robot successfully drew
the geometric shapes that were programmed using the o{line model.
This project was extremely successful. Following the end of the course, the project was
exhibited at our Engineering Open House and received several departmental and college awards.
In addition, we now have a well working interface between CimStation and the PUMA 260 robots
that has been incorporated into the basic laboratory exercises performed by all students in the
course GE 389, Robot Dynamics and Control. The student who carried out the project has
been motivated to continue this line of work and is currently the graduate TA for GE 389 and
is completing a Master's Thesis on robot calibration.

4.2 Bilateral Teleoperation with Time Delay in Transmission

Teleoperation represents one of the most interesting, challenging, and useful areas of robotics.
Operating a manipulator remotely as part of a master/slave system is useful for carrying out
tasks in remote or hazardous environments, such as inspection and maintenance in nuclear plants
and o{shore oils rigs, hazardous wasted inspection and cleanup, and repair of satellites in near
earth orbit. When operating a manipulator remotely it is desirable to sense contact forces at
the slave and communicate them back to the master manipulator in order to increase the sense
of \telepresence." Such a system is called a Bilateral Teleoperator. It has long been known
that even very small time delays in the feedback of force information from slave to master can

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 Figure 2: CimStation Model of the PUMA 260 Robot

destabilize the system. A solution to the time delay induced instability in bilateral manipulators
was rst presented in [2] using ideas from network theory and scattering theory. The purpose of
this project [3] was to simulate a force re ecting bilateral teleoperator system using CimStation
and to test and compare dierent control schemes for compensation of the time delays.
The robot chosen for the project was the UMI RTX robot, a six{axis SCARA manipulator
that is available in the College of Engineering Robotics Laboratory. A detailed model of the
robot was rst created in CimStation. Two copies of this model were then link by a communi-
cation channel to simulate a bilateral master/slave system. A spring was used to represent the
environment on which the slave exerts forces and transmits the sensed force back to the master.
Dierent control schemes for time delay compensation were then simulated and analyzed. This
project was extremely successful and the data generated by the student was published in a
special issue on teleoperation of the Journal of the Japan Robotics Society [5].
In order to carry out this project, both the kinematics and the dynamics and the dynamics
had to be modeled and simulated. CimStation allows automatic computation of the Lagrangian
dynamic equations of motion of the arm as well as modeling of actuator dynamics. To accomplish
this the inertia parameters of the robot and the actuator parameters had to be estimated. The
inertia parameters were computed by approximating the links as uniform hollow parellepipeds.
The actuator parameters were chosen from data supplied by the motor manufacturers. These

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parameter values were sucient to obtain realistic dynamic performance from the simulated
model.
One particular problem that had to be solved in this project dealt with the solution to the
inverse kinematics of the RTX. Because the RTX robot has a PRR conguration for its upper
arm instead of the RRP conguration found in most SCARA robots, CimStation's library of
inverse kinematic solvers did not provide a feasible solution. Thus an internal CimStation
routine was modied specically for the conguration of the RTX to produce a workable RTX
inverse kinematics routine in SIL code.
The standard PID algorithm that is built into the RTX controller was modeled and tested.
Special routines were written to model the communication channel between the master and slave
manipulators and the time delay compensation scheme of [2] was implemented and tested with
various time delays. Excellent simulation results were achieved. The quality of this student's
project was nearly at the level of a Master's Thesis.

Figure 3: CimStation Model of the RTX Robot

4.3 CimStation Model of the Rhino XR{3 Robot

The six Rhino robots in the College of Engineering Robotics and Automation Laboratory are
used for the students rst hands{on experience with robot manipulators. Conveyor belts, rotary
carousels, optical sensors and vision systems allow the students to create and program robotic

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 Figure 4: The Master-Slave-Environment Model

workcells to perform various manufacturing related applications. The purpose of this project [4]
was to create a detailed CimStation model of the Rhino XR{3 robot for use in teaching o{line
programming techniques. With the CimStation model of the Rhino XR{3 students have the
ability to design manufacturing workcells o{line in order to optimize the placement of the robot
and ancillary devices before setting up the actual workcell. The o{line system also allows more
sophisticated analysis and program than is available on the real system, for example, the ability
to plan and execute continuous path motion, simulate the dynamics of the arm and modify
the controller structure. While more straightforward than the other projects described above,
this project nevertheless presented some research challenges to the student. The most dicult
obstacle dealt with the manner in which the Rhino actuators are coupled to the driven links.
The Rhino XR{3 has both links 3 and 4 driven remotely. The motors driving these links are
located on link 1 and actuate their respective degrees{of{freedom via chain transmission. The
standard menu based model creation feature of CimStation does not allow link 4 to be driven
in this manner. The result was a robot whose motion was not a realistic emulation of the actual
motion of the Rhino XR{3. In order to emulate the remote drive feature the student researcher
had to bypass CimStations default joint variable denitions and write separate code to emulate
the actual relationships between the actuator and joint variables. Although simple in retrospect,
this turned out to be an interesting and challenging problem, one that was successfully solved by

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the student researcher. The nal result of this project is that we now have quite sophisticated
o{line programming capabilities available for our Rhino robots which are being incorporated
into the undergraduate robotics courses.

Figure 5: CimStation Model of the Rhino XR{3 Robot

4.4 Design of a Two Position Turntable

The Department of General Engineering Senior Design Project course, GE 242, is the capstone
course in the General Engineering curriculum. Students work in teams of three together with a
faculty advisor on actual industrial projects. The industrial sponsor provides nancial support
and determines desired goals for the project. This particular project [1] was to investigate
innovative design concepts for a positioner to be used in a robotic welding system. The company
desired to create a market niche by developing a two position table that could be sold for
under $ 5,000.00 and that had the slew rate, repeatability and load capacity of tables costing
signicantly more.
The student team studied the available turntables on the market and investigated various
alternative designs. The project team spent a great deal of time brainstorming various designs
ranging from fairly standard rotary turntables to more exotic concepts that used gravity assist
and uid lled lifting cushions instead of motors. The goal was not to be limited by standard
conservative technology and to investigate all possibilities before narrowing the eld to a few

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choices. The nal recommendation of the group was a pedestal type table which provided a
lower cost solution than the standard rotary turntable which comparable performance.
CimStation was used in this project to model and simulate the various table design concepts.
With CimStation the various tables could be quickly designed, simulated, and animated. Cim-
Station was particularly useful for demonstration purposes. CimStation allows the generation
of movies that were played during the nal presentation to the sponsor showing realistic motion
and performance of the various devices. This allowed the sponsor to compare the various alter-
native design concepts without the expense of building prototypes. The pedestal table designed
by the project team has since been constructed by the sponsor and is achieving considerable suc-
cess in the marketplace, making this project one of the most successful Senior Design Projects
in recent years.

Figure 6: CimStation Model of Rotary Turntable

5 Conclusions
The initial oerings of GE 293, Undergraduate Research in Robotics and Automation have been
very successful. Students have gained valuable experience in independent study in robotics and
their results have provided us with valuable tools that are being incorporated into our basic
robotics course sequence. The software package CimStation has performed extremely well in

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 Figure 7: CimStation Model of Pedestal Turntable

these studies. Having advanced students create tools in CimStation provides a mechanism for
beginning robotics students to take advantage of many of the sophisticated features of CimSta-
tion without spending a great deal of time \on the learning curve".
Some anticipated future projects involve:
1. Creating a SIL I/O program to generate RoboTalk programs for the Rhino XR{3 robot.
This would allow Rhino workcells created in CimStation to be downloaded and run on the
network of Rhino robots in our lab.
2. Creating a CimStation Model the Rhino SCARA robot, two of which are available in our
lab.
3. Creating a CimStation Model the CRS Plus robot which is available in our lab.
4. Creating a CimStation Model of the two link direct drive robot (D2R2) that we have built
for the purposes of teaching robot control principles in GE 389.
5. Utilizing CimStation further in our GE 242 Senior Design Project Course. There are a
number of anticipated industrial projects that can use CimStation protably. For example
our most recent project is to model and analyze a washing machine suspension system.
6. Create basic laboratory exercises using CimStation and SIL language to teach under-
graduates the principles of rotational and homogeneous transformations, coordinate frame

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 Figure 8: CimStation Model of a Passive Gravity Assisted Table

assignment using the Denavit{Hartenberg convention, forward and inverse kinematics, and
trajectory generation.
7. Create basic laboratory exercises using CimStation and SIL language to teach undergrad-
uates the principles or robot dynamics and control
8. Use CimStation in our Manufacturing Engineering courses to teach workcell design and
layout, exible manufacturing systems, and various applications of robotics.

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References
[1] Atkins, B., Wand, A, Whitmore, B., \Design of a Two Position Turntable," Senior Design
Project Report, Department of General Engineering, University of Illinois, December, 1993.
[2] Anderson, R. J., and Spong, M.W., \Bilateral Control of Teleoperators with Time Delay,"
IEEE Trans. Aut. Cont., Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 594{501, May, 1989.
[3] Gajewski, V., \Simulation of a Bilateral Master{Slave Teleoperator System in the Pres-
ence of Time Delays in the Transmission Link," GE 293 Project Report, Dept. of General
Engineering, University of Illinois, May, 1993.`
[4] Heliker, G., \A CimStation Model of the Rhino XR{3," GE 293 Project Report, Dept. of
General Engineering, University of Illinois, May, 1994.
[5] Spong, M.W., \Communication Delay and Control in Telerobotics," Journal of the Japan
Robotics Society, Special Issue on the Theory of Telerobotics, Vol. 11, No. 6, September,
1993.
[6] Whitmore, B., \Modeling and Interfacing a PUMA 260 robot with CimStation," GE 293
Project Report, Dept. of General Engineering, University of Illinois, May, 1993.

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