Two-Stage Robot Controller Auto-Tuning Methodology for Trajectory Tracking Applications

Abstract

Autonomy is increasingly demanded of industrial manipulators. Robots have to be capable of regulating their behavior to different operational conditions, without requiring high time/resource-consuming human intervention. Achieving an automated tuning of the control parameters of a manipulator is still a challenging task. This paper addresses the problem of automated tuning of the manipulator controller for trajectory tracking. A Bayesian optimization algorithm is proposed to tune firstly the low-level controller parameters (i.e., robot dynamics compensation), then the high-level controller parameters (i.e., the joint PID gains), providing a two-stage robot controller auto-tuning methodology. In both the optimization phases, the algorithm adapts the control parameters through a data-driven procedure, optimizing a user-defined trajectory tracking cost. Safety constraints ensuring, e.g., closed-loop stability and bounds on the maximum joint position errors, are also included. The performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated on a torque-controlled 7-degree-of-freedom FRANKA Emika robot manipulator. The 4 robot dynamics parameters (i.e., 4 link-mass parameters) are tuned in 40 iterations, while the robot control parameters (i.e., 21 PID gains) are tuned in 90 iterations. Comparable trajectory tracking-errors results with respect to the FRANKA Emika embedded position controller are achieved.