Professor Yan Shi of Lanzhou University introduced the relevant research

The reason why humans dominate the earth is because they have a clever brain. What's more, humans also possess dexterous hands. Nowadays, with the continuous advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics, robots, as an extension of people's hands, can not only do rough and fine work, but also "go to the sky and the ground".

At Lanzhou University, there is such a scientific research team, they are committed to the research and development of artificial intelligence technology, focusing on the research fields of robot systems and embodied intelligence, and have achieved remarkable research results in the intelligent perception, modeling and control of complex systems such as robots and drones. In the laboratory of the School of Information Science and Engineering of Lanzhou University, the team led by Professor Yan Shi overcame difficulties, broke through key technical barriers with innovation, and gave "life" to the robotic arm with artificial intelligence technology.

1 From "fixed" to "flexible": the intelligent evolution of the robotic arm

This is a scientific research team composed of more than 50 teachers and graduate students. In the past three years, the team has not only made breakthroughs in key technologies in complex control systems such as robots and drones, but also made a series of innovative achievements in intelligent perception, high-precision system modeling, and nonlinear control.

"The main purpose of the experiments using the robotic arm is to verify the high precision and immediacy of the robot's motion control, and we have achieved a series of research results in this regard." According to Yan Shi, the team used the data-driven Koopman modeling method, combined with the control scheme of LQR and MPC, to improve the motion control accuracy of the robotic arm by more than 5%. This achievement has been fully demonstrated in the laboratory of the Yanshi team through the physical control verification of the UR0e robotic arm.

The reporter saw that this is a robotic arm with 6 degrees of freedom, and according to the instructions, it wants to outline a five-pointed star pattern on a plane. When I received the task, I saw that it deftly rotated the "shoulder", "elbow" and "wrist" parts, and used the control end to quickly and accurately complete the tracking of the pentagram.

"This is a demonstrative trajectory tracking process that demonstrates the robotic arm's ability to precisely control the whole with an accuracy of 05.0 mm." According to the team members, the robotic arm has significantly improved its immediacy by adopting new technology, and its operating frequency can reach hundreds of hertz or even thousands of hertz per second, so as to control the robot's movement accurately and efficiently.

2 The traction of national demand has led to continuous breakthroughs in core technologies

It is understood that the research of robotic arms originated from the needs of industrial manufacturing and aerospace, and is closely related to major national scientific and technological projects. Professor Yan Shi introduced that major national scientific and technological projects have played a significant role in promoting the research and development of robotic arms. In dangerous scenarios such as manned space engineering, deep-sea exploration, and nuclear industry applications, the core technical problems of robotic arms have been continuously solved through multidisciplinary collaborative research.

The technical barriers of the artificial intelligence and robotics industry are extremely high, and only breakthroughs in key core technologies can get the industry out of the "stuck neck" dilemma.

It is understood that in the process of research and development, the team proposed the Kalman-Koopman LQR control scheme of the robot system in terms of key technologies, clarified the internal mechanism of the modeling of the uncertain parameter system, and developed the theory and method of modeling the variable nonlinear system.

At the same time, the team has also made innovations in control algorithms and intelligent perception. First, in order to solve the problem that it is difficult to accurately describe the dynamic characteristics of the robot by traditional methods, the nonlinear system is mapped to the high-dimensional linear space, and the high-precision control of the manipulator is realized by combining the adaptive LQR optimization controller. Another innovation is on the hardware side, which integrates Leap Motion gesture recognition, depth camera, lidar, real-time map, and microphone array voice interaction, giving the robot the ability to "see, touch, and hear". Through information fusion, the data such as gestures, voice, and environment are integrated, so that the robot can comprehensively analyze and perform complex tasks, which significantly improves its intelligence level and practicability.

3 "Heaven and Earth": multi-scenario application of robotic arm

"Now our robotic arm control has reached the world's leading level, published a series of high-quality papers, and gradually produced some new results." Yan Shi introduced.

It is understood that the Landa robotic arm not only has broad application prospects in the industrial and agricultural fields, but also has the ability to "go to heaven and earth".

閻石透露，團隊後續計劃將機械臂應用到工業機器人焊接和巡檢中，嘗試將其與相應的加持終端及仿人靈巧手結合，構建具身智能機器人，應用於太空探索、深海作業等複雜環境。並與長風廠和五一○所等單位合作，建立相應的科研實驗室和平臺，通過實踐探索出一條從實驗室走向市場的路徑，促進產業鏈、創新鏈等與地方的精準連結及深度融合，為培育發展新質生產力、服務區域高質量發展提供有力支撐。

Lanzhou Daily all-media reporter Ma Wenyan text/photo