Fault Adaptive Kinematic Control Using Multiprocessor System and its Verification Using a Hyper-redundant Manipulator

Abstract

Decentralized autonomous control architecture and self-organizing control architecture have several advantages in space robots, the most fascinating of which is an adaptation for partial faults. The Communications Research Laboratory have proposed an ""Orbital Maintenance System"" (OMS) that maintains a space system. We have developed a modular manipulator, which can be controlled by distributed processors in each module and can overcome partial failures. In this paper, we introduce a decentralized control algorithm for modular manipulators and discuss its performance in computer simulations and experiments. The algorithm proved useful for inspection in modular manipulators, and robust to partial faults.