An Overview ofKALI: a System to Program and Control Cooperative Manipulators

A software and hardware system, called Kali, for programming and controlling cooperative manipulators is described. It has been designed at McGill University in a collaborative effort with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A set of programming primitives which permit a programmer, human or automated, to specify cooperative tasks are first outlined. In the context of cooperative robots, trajectory generation issues are discussed and our implementation briefly described. Software engineering for system integration is also discussed. Finally, the paper describes the allocation of various computational tasks among the elements of a multi-processor computer. Target applications presently envisioned include space robotics, power line maintenance, and other resource industry applications.