A real time framework for pc-based robot control under the QNX4 operating system

Abstract Even if highly reliable and endowed with powerful development tools nowadays industrial robot controllers don't usually allow the user to operate at the low level required in order to experiment control strategies and algorithms and to specify trajectories at the joint level. Such needs are mandatory in the robot control R & D area. Recently, the wide availability of computing power and operating systems with real-time capabilities offered the chance to develop low-cost PC-based solutions to overcome these limits. In this paper we present the design of a modular architecture for PC-Based robot control and contextually evaluate the use of QNX4 as a operating system for control applications. The main features of the designed controller have been employed for the motion control of a 4 d.o.f. reconfigurable parallel robot.

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