Development of a robot holon using an open modular controller

Abstract

This paper reviews the development of a robot holon based on an open controller in the context of the holonic multicell control system (HoMuCS) architecture. We describe the results and research work that was involved in developing a robot holon for a physical robot. The robot holon was implemented on a existing robot at the department which was upgraded by removing its native control system and replacing it with a new PC-based open controller. The development of the robot holon builds on the notion that a robot holon will be able to perform both processing tasks and material handling tasks. Based on that notion we attempt to draw up a robot-architecture in the HoMuCS that can easily be reconfigured for these types of tasks. The research results gave a further specification of the HoMuCS architecture by extending it with the special robot holon type.