Robot manipulator control for hazardous waste‐handling applications

Physiotherapy is the treatment to recover a patient’s mobility and limb function after an injury, illness, or disability. Rehabilitation robots can be used to replace human physiotherapists. To ensure safety during robot physical therapy, the patient’s limb needs to be controlled to track a desired joint trajectory, and the torque due to interaction force/torque needs to be measured and regulated. Therefore, hybrid impedance and admittance with position control (HIPC) is required to track the trajectory and simultaneously regulate the contact torque. The literature describes two structures of HIPC: (1) a switched framework between admittance and impedance control operating in parallel (HIPCSW); and (2) a series connection between admittance and impedance control without switching. In this study, a hybrid adaptive impedance and position-based admittance control (HAIPC) in series is developed, which consists of a proportional derivative-based admittance position controller with gravitational torque compensation and an adaptive impedance controller. An extended state observer is used to estimate the interaction joint torque due to human stiff contact with the exoskeleton without the use of force/torque sensor, which is then used in the adaptive algorithm to update the stiffness and damping gains of the adaptive impedance controller. Simulation results obtained using MATLAB show that the proposed HAIPC significantly reduces the mean absolute values of the actuation torques (control inputs) required for the shoulder and elbow joints in comparison with HIPC and HIPCSW.

In April 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of the Navy, as a cooperating agency, issued the Programmatic Spent Nuclear Fuel Management and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Programs Final Environmental Impact Statement (1995 EIS). The 1995 EIS analyzed alternatives for managing The Department's existing and reasonably foreseeable inventories of spent nuclear fuel through the year 2035. It also included a detailed analysis of environmental restoration and waste management activities at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The analysis supported facility-specific decisions regarding new, continued, or planned environmental restoration and waste management operations. The Record of Decision (ROD) was signed in June 1995 and amended in February 1996. It documented a number of projects or activities that would be implemented as a result of decisions regarding INL Site operations. In addition to the decisions that were made, decisions on a number of projects were deferred or projects have been canceled. DOE National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures (found in 10 CFR Part 1 021.330(d)) require that a Supplement Analysis of site-wide EISs be done every five years to determine whether the site-wide EIS remains adequate. While the 1995 EIS was not a true site-wide EIS in that several programs were not included, most notably reactor operations, this method was used to evaluate the adequacy of the 1995 EIS. The decision to perform a Supplement Analysis was supported by the multi-program aspect of the 1995 EIS in conjunction with the spirit of the requirement for periodic review. The purpose of the SA is to determine if there have been changes in the basis upon which an EIS was prepared. This provides input for an evaluation of the continued adequacy of the EIS in light of those changes (i.e., whether there are substantial changes in the proposed action, significant new circumstances, or new information relevant to environmental concerns). This is not to question the previous analysis or decisions based on that analysis, but whether the environmental impact analyses are still adequate in light of programmatic changes. In addition, the information for each of the projects for which decisions were deferred in the ROD needs to be reviewed to determine if decisions can be made or if any additional NEP A analysis needs to be completed. The Supplement Analysis is required to contain sufficient information for DOE to determine whether (1) an existing EIS should be supplemented, (2) a new EIS should be prepared, or (3) no further NEP A documentation is required.

The development of new and innovative waste treatment technologies can significantly benefit the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) environmental restoration and waste management program. New technologies are expected to facilitate faster, better, cheaper, and safer remediation of existing waste problems. To encourage and direct the development of new waste treatment and management technologies, DOE established a research, development, demonstration, testing, and evaluation (RDDT E) program. The RDDT E program is managed by DOE's Office of Technology Development. The development, acceptance, and application of new technologies involves more than simply technical problems. If the best new technologies are to be applied in the fastest and most cost-effective manner possible, DOE must consider regulatory factors early and often in the technology development process. This report presents a number of regulatory issues that are relevant to any program intended to encourage the development of new waste treatment and management technologies. The report was prepared by Pacific Northwest Laboratory. 38 refs., 6 figs., 2 tabs.

As the prime contractor to the Department of Energy Idaho Operations Office (DOE-ID), Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Company (LMITCO) provides comprehensive waste management services to all contractors at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) through the Waste Management (WM) Program. This Program Management Plan (PMP) provides an overview of the Waste Management Program objectives, organization and management practices, and scope of work. This document will be reviewed at least annually and updated as needed to address revisions to the Waste Management`s objectives, organization and management practices, and scope of work. Waste Management Program is managed by LMITCO Waste Operations Directorate. The Waste Management Program manages transuranic, low-level, mixed low-level, hazardous, special-case, and industrial wastes generated at or transported to the INEEL.

In this paper, adaptive impedance control is developed for an ${n}$ -link robotic manipulator with input saturation by employing neural networks. Both uncertainties and input saturation are considered in the tracking control design. In order to approximate the system uncertainties, we introduce a radial basis function neural network controller, and the input saturation is handled by designing an auxiliary system. By using Lyapunov’s method, we design adaptive neural impedance controllers. Both state and output feedbacks are constructed. To verify the proposed control, extensive simulations are conducted.

This document was prepared to implement and support the US Department of Energy-Headquarters (DOE-HQ) national plan. The national plan, entitled Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Five-Year Plan (DOE 1990b) (hereinafter referred to as the DOE-HQ Five-Year Plan) is the cornerstone of the US Department of Energy's (DOE) long-term strategy in environmental restoration and waste management. The DOE-HQ Five-Year Plan addresses overall philosophy and environmental and waste-related activities under the responsibilities of the DOE Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management. The plan also reaffirms DOE-HQ goals to bring its nuclear sites into environmental compliance in cooperation with its regulators and the public, and to clean up and restore the environment by 2019 (the commitment for the Hanford Site is for one year sooner, or 2018). This document is part of the site-specific plan for the US Department of Energy-Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL). It is the first revision of the original plan, which was dated December 1989 (DOE-RL 1989a). This document is a companion document to the Overview of the Hanford Cleanup Five-Year Plan (DOE-RL 1989d) and The Hanford Site Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Five-Year Plan Activity Data Sheets (DOE-RL 1991). Although there are three documents that make up the complete DOE-RL plan, this detailed information volume was prepared so it could be used as a standalone document. 71 refs., 40 figs., 28 tabs.

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) is a US Department of Energy (DOE) multiprogram laboratory whose primary mission has been to research nuclear technologies. Working with these technologies and conducting other types of research generates waste, including radioactive and/or hazardous wastes. While most of the waste treatment, storage, and disposal practices have been effective, some practices have led to the release of contaminants to the environment. As a result, DOE has developed (1) an Environmental Restoration (ER) Program to identify and, where necessary, cleanup releases from inactive waste sites and (2) a Waste Management (WM) Program to safely treat, store, and dispose of DOE wastes generated from current and future activities in an environmentally sound manner. This document describes the plans for FY 1993 for the INEL`s ER and WM programs as managed by DOE`s Idaho Field Office (DOE-ID).

The Department of Energy`s Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (EM) is responsible for remediating its contaminated sites and managing its waste inventory in a safe and efficient manner. EM`s Office of Technology Development (OTD) supports applied research and demonstration efforts to develop and transfer innovative, cost-effective technologies to its site clean-up and waste management programs within EM`s Office of Environmental Restoration and Office of Waste Management. The purpose of the Technology Catalogue is to provide performance data on OTD-developed technologies to scientists and engineers assessing and recommending technical solutions within the Department`s clean-up and waste management programs, as well as to industry, other federal and state agencies, and the academic community. OTD`s applied research and demonstration activities are conducted in programs referred to as Integrated Demonstrations (IDs) and Integrated Programs (IPs). The IDs test and evaluate.systems, consisting of coupled technologies, at specific sites to address generic problems, such as the sensing, treatment, and disposal of buried waste containers. The IPs support applied research activities in specific applications areas, such as in situ remediation, efficient separations processes, and site characterization. The Technology Catalogue is a means for communicating the status. of the development of these innovative technologies. The FY93 Technology Catalogue features technologies successfully demonstrated in the field through IDs and sufficiently mature to be used in the near-term. Technologies from the following IDs are featured in the FY93 Technology Catalogue: Buried Waste ID (Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho); Mixed Waste Landfill ID (Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico); Underground Storage Tank ID (Hanford, Washington); Volatile organic compound (VOC) Arid ID (Richland, Washington); and VOC Non-Arid ID (Savannah River Site, South Carolina).

This paper describes an adaptive scheme for controlling the end-effector impedance of robot manipulators. The proposed control system consists of three subsystems: a simple "filter" which characterizes the desired dynamic relationship between the end-effector position error and the end-effector/environment contact force, an adaptive controller which produces the Cartesian-space control input required to provide this desired dynamic relationship, and an algorithm for mapping the Cartesian-space control input to a physically realizable joint-space control torque. The controller does not require knowledge of either the structure or the parameter values of the robot dynamics, and is implemented without calculation of the robot inverse kinematic transformation. As a result, the scheme represents a very general and computationally efficient approach to controlling the impedance of both nonredundant and redundant manipulators. Computer simulation results are given for a planar four degree-of-freedom redundant robot under adaptive impedance control. These results demonstrate that accurate end-effector impedance control and effective redundancy utilization can be achieved simultaneously by using the proposed controller.

The interaction force control problem for the object manipulated by the dual-arm manipulator with the unknown environment is addressed in this paper. An adaptive dual-loop impedance control scheme is designed to meet the three control targets, including the trajectory tracking control of the object, the internal force control of the object with the two arms, and the interaction force control of the object with the unknown environment. Firstly, an adaptive variable impedance control method is proposed in the outer loop to copy with the unknown stiffness and position of the environment. Secondly, an impedance control scheme based on the internal force is designed in the inner loop to plan the internal force and the modified position supplied with the outer-loop control. Thirdly, to realize the reference trajectory supplied with the inner-loop control, the virtual decomposition control (VDC) method is incorporated, which is a recursive adaptive control progress, so that the unknown dynamics of the manipulators is acceptable and the computation complexity is also very low to satisfy the real-time control requirement. The stability verifications of the inner-loop impedance control and the VDC method are given based on the Lyapunov method, and the stability analysis of the outer-loop impedance control is obtained using the Routh criterion. Finally, a plane dual-arm robotic manipulator with three degrees of freedom is used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

PurposeComponent positioning is an important part of aircraft assembly, aiming at the problem that it is difficult to accurately fall into the corresponding ball socket for the ball head connected with aircraft component. This study aims to propose a ball head adaptive positioning method based on impedance control.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a target impedance model for ball head positioning is constructed, and a reference positioning trajectory is generated online based on the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket. Second, the target impedance parameters were optimized based on the artificial fish swarm algorithm. Third, to improve the robustness of the impedance controller in unknown environments, a controller is designed based on model reference adaptive control (MRAC) theory and an adaptive impedance control model is built in the Simulink environment. Finally, a series of ball head positioning experiments are carried out.FindingsDuring the positioning of the ball head, the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket is maintained at a low level. After the positioning, the horizontal contact force between the ball head and the socket is less than 2 N. When the position of the contact environment has the same change during ball head positioning, the contact force between the ball head and the ball socket under standard impedance control will increase to 44 N, while the contact force of the ball head and the ball socket under adaptive impedance control will only increase to 19 N.Originality/valueIn this paper, impedance control is used to decouple the force-position relationship of the ball head during positioning, which makes the entire process of ball head positioning complete under low stress conditions. At the same time, by constructing an adaptive impedance controller based on MRAC, the robustness of the positioning system under changes in the contact environment position is greatly improved.

This article examines waste management and recycling as an element of reverse logistics in a circular economy. The concept of circular economy can be found very often in scientific and social environment. The aim of the article is to analyze the trends of waste management and recycling as a reverse logistics element in the conditions of circular economy in Europe and Lithuania. To achieve the goal were done: an analysis of theoretical sources to reveal the essence and connections of reverse logistics and circular economy, analysis of LR and EU legislation, development strategies of the environmental protection and waste management sector, analysis of EUROSTAT statistical data, monitoring, situation assessment and questionnaire survey. The main goals of the circular economy model are less raw materials, less waste, less emissions, managing such elements as raw materials, sustainable design, production, distribution, consumption, reuse, repair, collection, waste management, and residual waste. Direct logistics processes and reverse logistics play really important role in this concept. Logistics examines the movement of material, financial and information flows from the source of raw materials to the end user, reverse logistics examines the same flows, only in the opposite direction. Reuse, repair, collection, waste management are on responsibility of reverse logistics. For this reason, waste management in the terms of a circular economy cannot be seen only as the responsibility of the government and the end user (the resident sorting the waste). All participants in the supply chain, who were interested in bringing the material flow to the end user, and who created added value in the supply chain, according to the "polluter pays" principle, should take responsibility for the waste generated in the country, waste management and sorting, recycling. Because, for example, prevention of waste generation is a priority, and the cheapest solution is to avoid waste management and recycling. Thus, all participants in the supply chain must be interested and cooperate in the implementation of the circular economy. The general trends in the collection of the main sorted waste in Europe and Lithuania are not unambiguous, since waste management is regulated by different local laws of the countries. A general increase in the amount of sorted and collected waste is recorded, but not all countries demonstrate an increase, this may be related to the elements of the circular economy that have already been implemented, public awareness, declining consumerism, the economic situation in the country and other factors that lead to a generally more responsible approach to ecological aspects. EU newcomer countries are characterized by large increase in waste collection, regardless of waste types. Consumer opinion is quite favorable to the implementation of circular economy principles, but the main idea is that most of the responsibility for waste collection and management must be transferred to commercial participants in the supply chain.

The Infectious hospital waste management practices in hospital PNS Hafeez Hospital and PAF Hospital Islamabad, Pakistan in the light of environmental laws and hospital waste management rules. Data were collected using various methods such as survey questionnaires, interviews, group discussions informal, site observation, photographic documentation to study the current Infectious hospital waste management system and practices. Studies revealed many discrepancies and weaknesses in the hospital waste management system. The survey results showed that segregation of all wastes was not conducted according to standards rules and regulations. waste management team was not effective even the team member was not aware about environmental laws and standard waste management practices. Waste handling was also not according to the guideline provided by environmental laws. No protective clothing, gloves, masks were provided to waste management workers. Waste management team, doctors, nurses; sanitary staffs were not trained in dealing with hospital waste. It was concluded that the unsatisfactory current hospital waste management practices in both hospitals were mainly due to the lack of training, lack of awareness, and lack of knowledge of hospital waste management rules and laws.

Since the major pollutants in Al-Salt city is associated with solid waste, the study emphasizes on evaluating the management and the existing regulations and laws associated with municipal solid waste in addition to assessing the role that the local community plays along with the governmental agencies to execute the environmental regulation in Al-Salt city, Jordan. Al-Salt city has typical characteristics that represent most cities in the country. These characteristics are environmental practices, type and sources of waste, the climate, the geographical, demographical and social factors as well as the infrastructure and the governing system. The city has little industries therefore most of its waste is generated mostly from municipals rather than industrial. The waste is collected from a metal dumpster on each block of the residential area using a dump truck, then transferred to Al-Humra dump site without going through any process with few recycling activities and environmental awareness programs. The cost for collection and handling the waste is basically covered by the municipality except for small fees imposed on the area citizens although the city has no penalties and fines on citizens lettering. Most of the waste is disposed of in Al-Humra dumpsite west of Al-Salt city. Al-Humra serves seven towns and counties. Solid waste existing practices have showen some environmental impact on the surroundings of Al-Salt city. The existing environmental and solid waste practices considered inadequate and a comprehensive environmental and waste management program should be established. The findings of this manuscript will help of laying the ground for setting up solid waste management and environmental program including separation of wastes, reuse, recycling and better protection precautions to reduce pollution in the studied area as well as to serve as pilot project for other similar areas in the country.

This report summarizes the environmental surveillance activities conducted by Sandia National Laboratories, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company for the Tonopah Test Range operated by Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories` responsibility for environmental monitoring results extend to those activities performed by Sandia National Laboratories or under its direction. Results from other environmental monitoring activities are included to provide a measure of completeness in reporting. Other environmental compliance programs such as the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, environmental permits, and environmental restoration and waste management programs are also included in this report, prepared for the US Department of Energy in compliance with DOE Order 5400.1.