A control method for hydraulic manipulators in automatic emulsion filling

For autonomous operation of hydraulic manipulators, environmental perception and autonomous control are two research priorities. In this paper, our research focuses on emulsion explosive self-filling, including self identification of boreholes and autonomous control of manipulators. In an effort to achieve that purpose, we establish the kinematics model of the 5-DOF hydraulic manipulator which is transformed from a crane. Vision and laser range sensors are employed to measure the positions and orientations of boreholes. Additionally, a novel inverse kinematics numerical method of the 5-DOF manipulator is presented that only needs information of Z-axis direction vector and the position of end effector. Several experiments are performed to verify the feasibility of the control method for unmanned filling of emulsion explosives by the hydraulic manipulator.