DSP/FPGA-based highly integrated flexible joint robot

Abstract

This paper presents a DSP/FPGA based multi-sensory flexible-joint robot including modular mechanics, hardware and software architecture. The robot is composed of four modular flexible joints and a DLR-HIT-Hand. In each joint there is a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) for sensor data processing, brushless DC motor control and communication. The kernel of the hardware system is a PCI-based high speed floating-point Digital Signal Processor (DSP) for the arm/hand Cartesian level control, and FPGA for two high speed (up to 25 Mbps) real-time Serial Buses communication with the arm and hand. All the electronics are integrated into the joint to achieve the high modularity and reliability. Cartesian impedance control and position control with on-line gravity compensation are realized for regulation tasks of the robot with elastic joints. In addition, the experiments of the joint impedance control and Cartesian impedance control demonstrate that the multi-sensors highly integrated robot has a good performance.