Applications of Evolutionary Computation EvoApplications

2010 EvoCOMNET, EvoENVIRONMENT, EvoFIN,

EvoMUSART, and EvoTRANSLOG, Istanbul, Turkey, April 7 9,
2010, Proceedings, Part II 1st Edition

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VI Contents

Part 3 GAs in Electrical and Electronics Engineering 149

Chapter 8 Efficient VLSI Architecture

for Memetic Vector Quantizer Design 151
Chien-Min Ou and Wen-Jyi Hwang

Chapter 9 Multiple Access System Designs

via Genetic Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks 169
Shusuke Narieda

Chapter 10 Genetic Algorithms in Direction Finding 185

Dario Benvenuti

Chapter 11 Applications of Genetic Algorithm

in Power System Control Centers 201
Camila Paes Salomon, Maurílio Pereira Coutinho,
Carlos Henrique Valério de Moraes, Luiz Eduardo Borges da Silva
Germano Lambert-Torres and Alexandre Rasi Aoki

Part 4 GAs in Pattern Recognition 223

Chapter 12 Applying Genetic Algorithm in

Multi Language’s Characters Recognition 225
Hanan Aljuaid

Chapter 13 Multi-Stage Based Feature Extraction Methods

for Uyghur Handwriting Based Writer Identification 245
Kurban Ubul, Andy Adler and Mamatjan Yasin

Chapter 14 Towards the Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s

Disease Through the Application of
a Multicriteria Classification Model 263
Amaury Brasil, Plácido Rogério Pinheiro
and André Luís Vasconcelos Coelho

Part 5 GAs in Trading Systems 279

Chapter 15 Portfolio Management Using Artificial

Trading Systems Based on Technical Analysis 281
Massimiliano Kaucic

Chapter 16 Genetic Algorithm Application for

Trading in Market toward Stable Profitable Method 295
Tomio Kurokawa
Preface

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are global optimization techniques used in many real-life
applications. They are one of several techniques in the family of Evolutionary
Algorithms – algorithms that search for solutions to optimization problems by
“evolving” better and better solutions.

A Genetic Algorithm starts with a population of possible solutions for the desired
application. The best ones are selected to become parents and then, using genetic
operators like crossover and mutation, offspring are generated. The new solutions are
evaluated and added to the population and low-quality solutions are deleted from the
population to make room for new solutions. The members of the population tend to
get better with the increasing number of generations. When the algorithm is halted,
the best member of the existing population is taken as the solution to the problem.

Genetic Algorithms have been applied in science, engineering, business and social
sciences. A number of scientists have already solved many real-life problems using
Genetic Algorithms. This book consists of 16 chapters organized in five sections.

The first section contains five chapters in the field of automatic control. Chapter 1
presents a laser tracking system for measuring a robot arm’s tip with high accuracy
using a GA to optimize the number of measurement points. Chapter 2 presents a
model predictive controller that uses GAs for the optimization of cost function in a
simulation example of industrial furnace control. Chapter 3 describes a design method
to determine PID controller parameters using GAs. Finite-thrust trajectory
optimization using a combination between Gauss Pseudospectral Method and a GA is
proposed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 describes the optimization of an above-knee
prosthesis physical parameters using GAs.

The next section of the book deals with scheduling of resources and contains two
chapters in this field. Chapter 6 analyzes the Unit Commitment Problem, that is the
problem of selecting electrical power systems to be in service during a scheduling
period and determining the length of that period. Chapter 7 deals with several typical
applications of GAs to solving optimization problems arising from railway
management information system design, transportation resources allocation and
traffic control for railway operation.
X Preface

The third section contains four chapters in the field of electrical and electronics
engineering. Chapter 8 proposes a new VLSI architecture which is able to implement
Memetic Algorithms (which can be viewed as the hybrid GAs) in hardware. Chapter 9
describes a distributed estimation technique that uses GA to optimize frequency and
time division multiple access which is employed in several wireless sensor networks
systems. Chapter 10 deals with the problem of direction of arrival estimation through
a uniform circular array interferometer. GAs have been compared with other
optimization tools and they have confirmed a more robust behavior when low
computing power is available. The last chapter in this section, Chapter 11, presents the
GA application in three functions commonly executed in power control centers: power
flow, system restoration and unit commitment.

The fourth section of the book has three chapters that illustrate two applications of
character recognition and a multi-criteria classification. Chapter 12 applies a GA for
offline handwriting character recognition. Chapter 13 deals with writer identification
by integrating GAs with several other known techniques from pattern recognition.
Chapter 14 proposes an early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by combining a multi-
criteria classification model with a GA engine, with better results than those offered by
other existing methods.

Finally, the last section contains two chapters dealing with trading systems. Chapter
15 discusses the development of artificial trading systems for portfolio optimization
using a multi-modular evolutionary heuristic capable of dealing efficiently with the
zero investment strategy. Chapter 16 provides some insight into overfitting in the
environment of trading in market and proposes a GA application for trading in market
toward a stable profitable method.

These evolutionary techniques may be useful to engineers and scientists from various
fields of specialization who need some optimization techniques in their work and who
are using Genetic Algorithms for the first time in their applications. I hope that these
applications will be useful to many other people who may be familiarizing themselves
with the subject of Genetic Algorithms.

Rustem Popa
Department of Electronics and Telecommunications
“Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati
Romania
 Part 1

GAs in Automatic Control

 1

Selection of Optimal Measuring Points

Using Genetic Algorithm in the Process to
Calibrate Robot Kinematic Parameters
Seiji Aoyagi
Kansai University,
Japan

1. Introduction
At present state, almost the industrial robot tasks are performed by the teaching playback
method, in which the robot repeats positioning its joint angles, which are taught manually
in advance using a teaching pendant, etc. This method is based on comparatively high
repeatability of a robot arm. The problem here is that the laborious and time-consuming
online manual teaching is inevitable whenever the specification of the product is changed. It
is desirable to teach the task easily and quickly to the robot manipulator when the
production line and the production goods are changed.
Considering these circumstances, the offline teaching based on the high positioning
accuracy of the robot arm is desired to take the place of the online manual teaching
(Mooring et al., 1991). In the offline teaching, the joint angles to achieve the given Cartesian
position of the arm’s tip are calculated using a kinematic model of the robot arm. However,
a nominal geometrically model according to a specification sheet does not include the errors
arising in manufacturing or assembly. Moreover, it also does not include the non-geometric
errors, such as gear transmission errors, gear backlashes, arm compliance, etc., which are
difficult to geometrically consider in the kinematic model. Under this situation, the joint
angles obtained based on the non-accurate nominal kinematic model cannot realize the
desired arm’s tip position satisfactorily, making the offline teaching unfeasible.
Therefore, some method of calibrating precisely the geometric and non-geometric
parameters in a kinematic model is required, in which the three dimensional (3-D) absolute
position referring to a world coordinate system should be measured (Mooring & Padavala,
1989; Whitney et al., 1986; Judd & Knasinski, 1990; Stone, 1987; Komai & Aoyagi, 2007). The
parameters are obtained so as that the errors between the measured positions and the
predicted positions based on the kinematic model are minimized by a computer calculation
using a nonlinear least square method.
In this study, a laser tracking system was employed for measuring the 3-D position. This
system can measure the 3-D position with high accuracy of several tens micrometer order
(Koseki et al., 1998; Fujioka et al., 2001a; Fujioka et al., 2001b). As an arm to calibrate, an
articulated robot with seven degrees of freedom (DOF) was employed. After the geometric
4 Genetic Algorithms in Applications

parameters were calibrated, the residual errors caused by non-geometric parameters were
further reduced by using neural networks (abbreviated to NN hereinafter), which is one of
the originalities of this study.
Several researches have used NN for robot calibration. For example, it was used for
interpolating the relationship between joint angles and their errors due to joint compliance
(Jang et al., 2001). Two joints liable to suffer from gravitational torques were dealt with, and
the interpolated relationships were finally incorporated into the forward kinematic model.
So the role of NN was supplemental for modeling non-geometric errors. It is reported that
the relationship between Cartesian coordinates and positioning errors arising there was
interpolated using NN (Maekawa, 1995). Joint angles themselves in forward kinematic
model, however, were not compensated, and experimental result was limited to a relative
(not absolute) measurement using a calibration block in a rather narrow space. Compared
with these researches, in the method proposed in this study, the joint angles in the forward
kinematic model are precisely compensated using NN so that the robot accuracy would be
fairly improved in a comparatively wide area in the robot work space. As instrumentation
for non-contact absolute coordinate measurement in 3-D wide space, which is inevitable for
calibration of the robot model and estimation of the robot accuracy, a laser tracking system
is employed in this study.
To speed up the calibration process, the smaller number of measuring points is preferable,
while maintaining the satisfactory accuracy. As for a parallel mechanism, methods of
reducing the measurement cost were reported (Tanaka et al., 2005; Imoto et al., 2008; Daney
et al., 2005). As one of the methods of selecting optimal measurement poses, the possibility
of using genetic algorithm (GA) was introduced (Daney et al., 2005): however, it was still on
the idea stage, i.e., it was not experimentally applied to a practical parallel mechanism. As
for a serial type articulated robot, it was reported that the sensitivities of parameters
affecting on the accuracy are desired to be averaged, i.e., not varied widely, for achieving
the good accuracy (Borm & Menq, 1991; Ishii et al., 1988). As the index of showing the extent
how the sensitivities are averaged, observability index (OI) was introduced in (Borm &
Menq, 1991), and the relationship between OI and realized accuracy was experimentally
investigated: however, a method of selecting optimal measurement points to maximize OI
under the limitation of point number has not been investigated in detail, especially for an
articulated type robot having more than 6-DOF. In this paper, optimal spatial selection of
measuring points realizing the largest OI was investigated using GA, and it was practically
applied to a 7-DOF robot, which is also the originality of this study.

2. Measurement apparatus featuring laser tracking system

2.1 Robot arm and position measurement system
An articulated robot with 7-DOF (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, PA10) was employed as a
calibration object. A laser tracking system (Leica Co. Ltd., SMART310) was used as a
position measuring instrument. The outline of experimental setup using these apparatuses
is shown in Fig. 1
The basic measuring principle of laser tracking system is based on that proposed by Lau
(Lau, 1986). A laser beam is emitted and reflected by a tracking mirror, which is installed in
the reference point and is rotated around two axes. Then, this beam is projected to a retro-
Selection of Optimal Measuring Points
Using Genetic Algorithm in the Process to Calibrate Robot Kinematic Parameters 5

reflector called Cat’s-eye, which is fixed at the robot arm’s tip as a target (see Figs. 2 and 3).
The Cat's-eye consists of two hemispheres of glasses, which have the same center and have
different radiuses. A laser beam is reflected by the Cat’s-eye and returns to the tracking
mirror, following the same path as the incidence.

Cat’s-eye
Laser tracking system

PA10

Fig. 1. Experimental setup for measuring position of robot arm’s tip

Hemispheres of glasses

φ75 mm

Fig. 2. Cat’s-eye

Reflector X, Y, Z : Cartesian coordinate system

(Cat's-eye) X φZ L, θ, φ : Polar coordinate system
Lθ Encoder
Tracking Mirror

Y
DD Motor

Encoder

DD Motor

Position Detector
Beam Splitter

Single beam
interferometer

Fig. 3. Principle of measurement of SMART310

The horizontal and azimuth angle information of laser direction is obtained by optical
encoders, which are attached to the two axes of the tracking mirror. The distance
information of laser path is obtained by an interferometer. Using the measured angles and
distance, the position of the center of Cat’s-eye, i.e., the position of robot arm’s tip, can be
6 Genetic Algorithms in Applications

calculated with considerably high accuracy (the detail is explained in the following
subsection).

2.2 Estimation of measuring performance

According to the specification sheet, the laser tracking system can measure 3-D coordinates
with repeatability of ±5 ppm (µm/m) and accuracy of ±10 ppm (µm/m). In this subsection,
these performances are experimentally checked.
First, Cat’s-eye was fixed, and static position measurement was carried out to verify the
repeatability of the laser tracking system. Figures 4, 5, and 6 show the results of transition of
measured x, y, and z coordinate, respectively. Looking at these figures, it is proven that the
repeatability is within ±4µm, which does not contradict the above-mentioned specification
which the manufacturer claims.
Second, the known distance between two points was measured to verify the accuracy of the
laser tracking system. Strictly speaking, the performance estimated here is not the accuracy,
but is to be the equivalence. The scale bar, to both ends of which the Cat’s-eye be fixed, was
used as shown in Fig. 7. The distance between two ends is precisely guaranteed to be 800.20
mm. The positions of Cat’s-eye fixed at both ends were measured by the laser tracking
system, and the distance between two ends was calculated by using the measured data. The
results are shown in Fig. 8. Concretely, the measurement was done for each end, and the
difference between corresponding data in these ends was calculated off-line after the
measurement. Looking at this figure, it is proven that the data are within the range of ±10
µm; however, the maximal absolute error from 800.2 mm is 25 µm, which is somewhat
degraded compared with the specification. The error is supposedly due to some
uncalibrated mechanical errors of the laser tracking system itself.
In the following sections, although the robot accuracy is improved by calibration process,
the positioning error still be in sub-millimeter order, i.e., several hundreds micrometer
order, at the least. Therefore, the used laser tracking system, whose error is several tens
micrometer order at the most, is much effective for the application of robot calibration.

22.541
22.54
22.539
22.538
22.537 8 µm
x coordinate mm

22.536
22.535
22.534 1 µm
22.533
22.532
22.531
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time ms

Fig. 4. Result of transition of x coordinate

Selection of Optimal Measuring Points
Using Genetic Algorithm in the Process to Calibrate Robot Kinematic Parameters 7

1533.3475
1533.347

y coordinate mm
1533.3465
1533.346
3 µm
1533.3455
1533.345
0.5 µm
1533.3445
1533.344
1533.3435
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time ms

Fig. 5. Result of transition of y coordinate

-615.949
-615.95 0 20 40 60 80 100
-615.951
z coordinate mm

-615.952
-615.953
8 µm
-615.954
-615.955
-615.956 1 µm
-615.957
-615.958
-615.959
Time ms

Fig. 6. Result of transition of z coordinate

800.20 mm

Fig. 7. Scale bar

800.2

800.195
Diviation mm

25 μm
800.19
20 μm
800.185
5 μm
800.18

800.175

800.17
0 20 40 60 80 100
Time ms

Fig. 8. Result of measurement of scale bar

8 Genetic Algorithms in Applications

3. Calibration of kinematic parameters

3.1 Kinematic model using DH parameter
In this research, the kinematic model of the robot is constructed by using Denabit-
Hartenberg (DH) parameters (Denavit & Hartenberg, 1955). The schematic outline of the DH
notation is shown in Fig. 9. In this modeling method, each axis is defined as Z axis and two
common perpendiculars are drawn from Zi  1 to Zi and from Zi to Zi  1 , respectively. The
distance and the angle between these two perpendiculars are defined as di and  i ,
respectively. The torsional angle between Zi and Zi  1 around Xi  1 is defined as  i . The
length of the perpendicular between Zi and Zi  1 is defined as ai . Using these four
parameters, the rotational and translational relationship between adjacent two links is
defined. The relationship between two adjacent links can be expressed by a homogeneous
coordinate transformation matrix, the components of which include above-mentioned four
parameters.

 i +1
Joint i i Joint i +1
Link i
i
ai Z i 1
Zi
di  i +1 X i 1
i i
Xi

Fig. 9. DH notation

The nominal values of DH parameters of PA10 robot on the basis of its specification sheet
are shown in Table I. The deviations between the calibrated values (see the next subsection)
and the nominal ones are also shown in this table.

The kinematic model of the relationship between the measurement coordinate system (i.e.,
SMART310 coordinate system) and the 1st axis coordinate system of the robot is expressed
by a homogeneous transformation matrix using 6 parameters (not 4 parameters of DH
notation), which are 3 parameters of r ,  p ,  y for expressing the rotation, and 3 parameters
of x0 , y 0 , z0 for expressing the translation.
The kinematic model from the robot base coordinate system to the 7th joint coordinate
system is calculated by the product of homogeneous coordinate transformation matrices,
which includes 4×7 = 28 DH parameters.

As for the relationship between the 7th joint coordinate system and the center position of
Cat’s-eye, it can be expressed by using translational 3 parameters x8 , y8 , z8 .
Thus, as the result, the kinematic model of the robot is expressed by using 6+28+3 = 37
parameters in total, which is as follows: