Open Software Structure for Controlling Industrial Robot Manipulators

Abstract

In this chapter, the design, implementation and experimentation of an open software structure for industrial robot manipulators have been presented. The developed software allows the users to save time and efforts in the implementation and performance evaluation of new control algorithms, as well as in the addition of new hardware components, i.e. sensors or actuators. Therefore, the developed software is useful for research in the field of robotics and human resource training, with potential impact in industry. The software system has been split into two different programs that communicate each other, clearly dividing different tasks of the control system. This way, a modular reuse based system is obtained. First program (Critic Time Program) is responsible for communicating with the sensors and the actuators through the data acquisition and control hardware, updating the sensors' data in the shared memory block, and it is also responsible for synchronization of the two programs. Each one of the hardware devices is handled with a different object, obtaining the desirable encapsulation for the data and methods associated to each device. Second program (Control Program) is responsible for running the control algorithm and updating the control actions in the shared memory block. Additionally, the proposed open software structure has been evaluated with two different control algorithms: first, a classical PD controller using the internal position sensors of the robot; and second, a passivity based visual controller using a vision system placed at the end effector of the robot. Both, the classical PD controller and the visual controller were successfully implemented in the proposed software structure, showing that the main objectives of the work presented in this chapter have been achieved.