DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A MODULAR MANIPULATOR ARCHITECTURE

摘要

The Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) has successfully established a well-defined component interface for unmanned mobile systems, but has yet to address the implications of such systems requiring an on-board robot manipulator. This configuration is seen in many applications including planetary exploration, hazardous materials removal, and marine research and is frequently referred to as the vehicle-manipulator system. The purpose of our study was to develop and implement a set of JAUS components that will allow for tele-operational (teleop) and autonomous control of a vehicle-manipulator platform. Teleop control is the control of a system by the direct input of a human or a computer. Autonomous control is a cooperative mode between the vehicle and the manipulator. Testing and implementation of these components was performed on a 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) Puma 762 robot manipulator (Unimation Westinghouse, Danbury, Connecticut) outfitted with a commercially available Galil motion controller (Galil Motion Control, Inc, Rocklin, California). Successful completion and adequate compatibility to the outlined JAUS performance specifications would ensure the inception of the above mentioned components to the latest version of the document's Reference Architecture. Even though this modular manipulator architecture is suitable for both autonomous and teleop control, testing and results were based solely on the input provided using a graphical user interface on a computer.