Distributed control architecture for a sensor-driven dual arm system

Abstract

A distributed computing and control architecture for sensor-based control of a dual arm system is described. The system comprises of two PUMA 560 robots with state-of-the-art joint-level motion controllers with accurate joint position and velocity measurement, an accurate joint calibration system, and six-axis wrist force/torque sensors with optical fiber communication with the controller. A Silicon Graphics workstation, through a shared memory interface with the joint-level controllers, provides a task-level command and control capability. A computer vision system, with two CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) cameras, is also interfaced to the workstation. A variety of control schemes may be implemented on this system. A servo rate of 1000 Hz, without interpolation, has been achieved for task-level servo schemes with force feedback. The experimental results presented here demonstrate the performance capabilities of the system. © 1994.