an Open Control System for Manipulator Robots

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for increased capability and flexibility has lead to an increase in the need for controllers based on open architectures. The Open Robot Control Software (OROCOS) project was born as an effort to match this demand. It is a general-purpose, open-source, modular framework for robot and machine control. In this paper, we present an implementation of a robot controller using OROCOS. The system environment is the Linux operating system with the RTAI real-time patch. The controller is based on a distributed architecture where each processing node is associated to a joint of the robot. Hence, the system could be extended to other robots. The CANbus is used for real-time data transfer such as sensor measurements and actuator commands. In OROCOS, each joint is mapped to a component and can use all the features of the framework. This reduces the cost and work because it allows the reuse of elements of an existing system. The paper present results of a controller implementation which illustrates the benefits of open architecture systems.