QRobot - a multitasking PC based robot control system

We describe QRobot, a low level real-time PC-based system for controlling PUMA robot manipulators. Specifically, we illustrate how a standard PUMA controller can be retrofitted with interface boards that allow it to be connected to a standard PC. All computational units are removed from the existing PUMA controller, and the PC assumes the role of computing the control strategy. A low level control is implemented for a PUMA 560 manipulator. The low level control software is then connected to two high level software environment for purposes of high level trajectory generation, kinematics, inverse kinematics, etc. Excellent tracking results are obtained with both systems. Some limitations of the two high level software environments were discovered during the development of QRobot. These limitations provide the motivation for the future development of a new object oriented robot control system.