A Modular Environment for Manipulator Control and Programming

Abstract

Abstract The paper gives an overview on the global structure of a modular environment for manipulator programming and control. Here are discussed the functions of the modules and their independence of one another. The structure of the connections and the standardization of interchanged information are also considered. The development of a modular environment of this type is suggested by the needs of its portability between different types of manipulators and low level control systems. The design of the environment has two basic purposes. The first is to build every module by a manner of working independent of each other. Every module has a strictly defined set of functions and I/O parameters. That would give the possibility to exchange the set of the modules representing the description of a manipulator with these representing another one. The second purpose is the independence of the work of the entire system on the presence or absence of some of its modules i.e. the system can work successfully without one or more of the modules which don’t take part in its main body. The absence of a module has as effect only the falling away of its properties.