Manipulation robots: Computer aided design and control synthesis

Concept and brief description of major program modules for realization of general manipulation system “simulator”, i.e. programming system for the design, dynamic analysis, synthesis and verification of control algorithms for manipulation systems of arbitrary mechanical configuration is presented. The simulation system can be used for the computer-aided design of the stand-alone manipulation systems as well as for the teleoperational systems controlled semi-automatically. The simulation system is based on the computer-generated complete dynamic model of the active spatial mechanisms. The simulator is intended for: (1) the mechanical configuration design, (2) the control synthesis for the chosen mechanical configuration and actuators, adopted control structure and given class of manipulation tasks. Previously developed and tested algorithms and computer-aided design procedures, used in developing the system, are reported in references. This paper should be understood as conceptual description of the programming system which synthesizes all previous results.