An EtherCAT based control system for human-robot cooperation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an EtherCAT based control system for human-robot cooperation. The system engages EtherCAT as high speed industrial motion network to enable force based motion control in real-time and is composed of HRCMC(Human-Robot Cooperation Master Controller) and HRESC(Human-Robot EtherCAT Slave Controller). For human-robot cooperation, real-time force interaction is essential to apply for various applications (ex. direct robot teaching, etc.). For the real time control, HRCMC is designed using RTOS and EtherCAT network and HRESC has the capability to collect and transfer to HRCMC all sensor information of robot including force sensors. It is proven by experimental results that the proposed system has real time controllability for force interaction based Human-Robot cooperation system.