CHIMERA: a real-time programming environment for manipulator control

Abstract

CHIMERA is a real-time computing environment used in the Reconfigurable Modular Manipulator System project. CHIMERA, which is both a hardware and software environment, allows rapid development and implementation of real-time control programs. It provides a C/Unix-flavored concurrent programming environment for a Motorola 68020 multiprocessor hardware configuration connected to a Sun workstation. CHIMERA has been implemented using commercial hardware in conjunction with a sophisticated, locally developed software package, resulting in a reliable, reasonably priced, and easily duplicated system. CHIMERA is currently being ported for real-time control of the CMU Direct Drive Arm II. The authors describe the implementation and capabilities of the CHIMERA environment and illustrate how these features are used in robot control applications.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>