- Interactive Motion Control -

Information Hardware Software Example Code

Hardware

Previous Research

The robot workcell consists of two robots Puma 560 and IBM 7575, and a conveyer system. The retrofitted robot controller consists of servo controller, I/O and A/D interface boards from Delta Tau Data Systems, machine vision system from Datacube and Panasonic, force/torque sensing system from JR3. The robot workcell is coordinated in the CH language environment under a real-time operating system LynxOS from Lynx Real-Time Systems running in a VMEbus based single board computer MVME167 from Motorola. There are several computer workstations, X-terminals, and PCs in the lab to drive robot manipulators through the network. CH is used as login shell for operation of the robot workcell with multiple robot manipulators and conveyer system.

New Research

Research is being done to transfer the previous setup of the robotic workcell to RT Linux running on a standard PC instead of LynxOS running on a VMEbus based computer. Since the computer power of standard PCs have increased, the use of PCs in machine control reduces costs and ease in part replacement. The availabily of RT Linux as an open source free operating system with a wide availability of support not only reduces cost but gives the operator a wide variety of free support and debugging. A new PMAC board, Turbo PMAC2-PCI board, will be used to keep the robotic workcell uptodate with available industrial and commerical multi-axis boards.

The Turbo PMAC2 board is a member of the Turbo PMAC family of boards from Delta Tau that is optimized for interface to sinwave of direct-PWM servo drives. Its software is capable of 32 axes of control and it can have up to eight channels of on-board axis interface circuitry.

--- Robotic Workcell ---

The next phase of the project requires the replacement of the main controller units of a six axis PUMA 560 robotic arm, a four axis IBM 7575 robotic arm and a one axis conveyer system. The PUMA 560 is a standard arm that is widely used in research.

--- PUMA 560 Robotic Manipulator ---

The Puma 560 is a six degree of freedom robot manipulator. The end-effector of the robot arm can reach a point within its workspace from any direction. The six degrees of freedom are controlled by six brushed DC servo motors, each coupled with a 500-1000 count 3 channel encoder and a potentiometer. The robot can determine its global postion from the given feedback information. The original controller of this Puma 560 has been retrofitted. The robot has been previously controlled remotely through the network using a PMAC-PC.

--- IBM 7575 Robotic Manipulator ---

The IBM 7575 is a four degree of freedom SCARAR industrial robot manipulator. The four degrees of freedom are controlled by three brushed DC servo motors coupled with 3 channel encoders and a linear drive motor. The robot has been popularly used in industries for assembly. It has also been used for hip replacement surgeries.