PARALLEL PROCESSING OF ROBOT CONTROL AND SIMULATION

Abstract

This chapter describes parallel processing of robot-arm control computation and simulation. The parallel processing of robot control computation has attracted much attention to develop a cost-effective, compact, and advanced robot controller which allows a robot system to perform very complicated operations quickly and accurately even in hazardous environments, such as space and ocean floor. Also, parallel processing of robot motion simulation is important to efficiently develop the advanced robot hardwares and the controllers. This chapter introduces several parallel processing schemes on multiprocessor systems for the robot-arm control computation and the robot-arm simulation. More concretely, first of all, parallel processing schemes for the Newton-Euler equations for dynamic control are introduced. Secondly, how to implement the schemes on an actual multiprocessor system is discussed. Thirdly, parallel processing schemes for Walker & Orin's algorithm for dynamics .simulation and an implementation of the schemes on a multiprocessor system are described. Finally, future directions of the parallel processing of the robot control and simulation are briefly discussed.