A robot manipulator by a distributed control approach

A robot manipulator system employing a distributed control technique is described. Although much theoretical research has suggested the importance of distributed control in robot manipulation, very few manipulator systems of this kind have been actually proposed. The present manipulator system is realized by assigning a single 8-bit microprocessor at each of the four joints of the manipulator. Initialized by the central 16-bit processor, these microprocessors calculate their respective joint angles by mutually exchanging the information necessary for the calculation via the central processor, and give motion to their respective arms. Experimental results show successful achievement of the distributed control.