Robot hardware and programming software description

Abstract

In research on robot control system the main problem is that the structure of the controller is closed. Industrial robots are equipped with controllers which are not suitable for any kind of research. These controllers are designed so that the robot is able to repeat simple operations. Therefore the control structure is not universal and the controllers are not appropriate for research purposes. In order to solve this problem the best way would be to build a new controller with an open architecture, suitable for research. Such a solution, discussed at the end of this chapter, is usually expensive. A more cost-effective alternative is to build a modular open programming architecture, which uses the resources of the existing controller but is more open and useful for research purposes. This solution is discussed first in this chapter. As a representative example we take the IRp-6 robot, which belongs to the class of geared robots.