Abstract
Robotic systems are becoming increasingly complex, driven by advances in mechanical design, sensing, actuation, and autonomy, as well as by the growing demands of modern robotic applications. This complexity can originate from various sources, including intricate mechanical structures with many degrees of freedom, flexibility, singularities, and friction effects; highly nonlinear and coupled dynamics with unknown or time-varying parameters; complex or constrained actuation, including under- and over-actuation and input saturations; interactions with uncertain and changing environments; and stringent real-time computational constraints. Such challenges are becoming increasingly relevant in both academic research and industrial applications.
As a result, the control of complex robotic systems cannot be addressed using conventional control approaches alone. The specific characteristics and constraints of these systems must be explicitly considered during the control design process to achieve reliable, robust, and high-performance operation. This lecture will focus on the control of complex robotic systems and will provide an overview of the main challenges associated with their modeling and control. These challenges will first be introduced and illustrated through a variety of robotic applications. The motivations for developing advanced control strategies will then be discussed, highlighting the limitations of conventional approaches in addressing complex robotic behaviors and operating conditions. Finally, selected advanced control methodologies will be presented, with an emphasis on their underlying principles and practical implementation. Their effectiveness will be demonstrated through experimental results obtained on real robotic platforms, providing insights into the transition from theoretical developments to practical robotic applications.
Mini-bio
Ahmed CHEMORI received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Automatic Control from the Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. During 2004–2005, he served as a Research and Teaching Assistant at LSS Laboratory University Paris 11. He then joined Gipsa-Lab as a CNRS postdoctoral researcher. He is currently a Senior CNRS Researcher in Automatic Control and Robotics at the CNRS, affiliated with LIRMM laboratory. His research interests include nonlinear control (adaptive, robust, and predictive) and its real-time applications in various areas of robotics, including parallel robotics, marine robotics, and wearable robotics. He is the author or co-author of more than 195 scientific publications, including journal articles, patents, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has co-supervised 28 Ph.D. theses (including 21 successfully defended) and more than 40 M.Sc. theses. He is the Head of the Marine Robotics Team, and the Chair of the LIRMM Valorization Committee. He serves as Technical Editor for IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics and as Guest Editor for several special issues. He is an IEEE Senior Member and an IFAC member of Technical Committees TC1.2 (Adaptive and Learning Systems), TC4.2 (Mechatronic Systems), TC4.3 (Robotics), and TC7.2 (Marine Systems). He has also served as a TPC/IPC member and Associate Editor for several international conferences, including IEEE IROS, IEEE RO-MAN, IFAC ALCOS, IFAC CAMS, and the IFAC World Congress, among others, and has organized multiple scientific events.
