A PC-Based Configuration Controller for Dexterous 7-DOF Arms

This paper describes the architecture and performance of a PC-based configuration controller for dexterous 7-DOF manipulators. The computing platform is a 486-based personal computer equipped with a bus extender to access the robot Multibus controller, together with a single-board computer as the graphical engine, and a parallel I/O board to interface with a force-torque sensor mounted on the manipulator wrist. The Windows TM environment is enhanced by the iRMX flR real-time operating system that runs the configuration control algorithms for redundancy resolution. The position control algorithm is executed every 2:5 ms; motions can be simulated and displayed in real-time by the graphical engine on a separate monitor. The results of several experiments carried out with a Robotics Research manipulator have shown motion control capabilities comparable to those obtained with more extensive computing systems, thus validating the use of PC's for dexterous manipulator control. PCbased moti..