A versatile C++ toolbox for model based, real time control systems of robotic manipulators

Model based technologies form the core of advanced robotic applications such as model predictive control and feedback linearization. More sophisticated models result in higher quality but the use in embedded real-time control systems imposes strict requirements on timing, memory allocation, and robustness. To satisfy these constraints, the model implementation is often optimized by manual coding, an unwieldy and error prone process. This paper presents an approach that exploits code synthesis from high level intuitive and convenient multi-body system (MBS) model descriptions. It relies on an object-oriented C++ library of MBS components tailored to the computations required in robot control such as forward and inverse kinematics, inverse dynamics, and Jacobians. Efficient model evaluation algorithms are developed that apply to multi-body tree structures as well as kinematic loops that are solved analytically for a certain class of loop structures.