Resource management for a multi-arm robotic assembly cell

The authors describe the resource management strategy for a multi-arm robotic assembly cell under development at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Ottawa. Conceived to support an object-oriented programming language, this assembly cell has a flexible architecture integrating several functional blocks: a task-scheduler, one or more object presentation units, two or more assembly processors, one or more assembly fixtures, and a free-space manager. The architecture and communication aspects are based upon the natural properties of a distributed real-time robotic system. The advantages of such a system are modularity, flexibility, and the ability to exploit the parallelism inherent in complex robot assembly operations. The authors introduce the idea of considering the physical space within which the system operates as a resource that can be managed as an independent entity within the distributed architecture of the robotic system