Prototyping Environment for Robot Manipulators

Prototyping is an important activity in engineering Prototype development is a good test for checking the viability of a proposed system Prototypes can also help in determining system pa rameters ranges or in designing better systems We are proposing a prototyping environment for electro mechanical systems and we chosen a link robot manipulator as an example In Designing a robot manipulator the interaction between several modules S W VLSI CAD CAM Robotics and Control illustrates an interdisciplinary prototyping environment that includes di erent types of information that are radically di erent but combined in a coordinated way This environment will enable optimal and exible design using recon gurable links joints actuators and sensors Such an environment should have the right mix of software and hardware components for designing the physical parts and the controllers and for the algorithmic control for the robot modules kinematics inverse kinematics dynamics trajectory planning analog control and computer digital control Specifying object based communications and catalog mechanisms between the software modules controllers physical parts CAD designs and actuator and sensor components is a necessary step in the prototyping activities In this report a framework for exible prototyping environment for robot manipulators is proposed along with the required sub systems and interfaces between the di erent components of this environment This work was supported in part by DARPA grant N J NSF grant CDA and a University of Utah Research Committee grant All opinions ndings conclusions or recommendations expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily re ect the views of the sponsoring agencies