A reusable software architecture for manual controller integration

This paper examines the commonalities of manual controllers used in robotics for teleoperation. These include devices ranging from simple joysticks to force-reflecting controllers. The similarities in functionality and behaviour of these controllers is further exploited to develop a reusable software architecture for manual controller interfacing. The development of this architecture is based on object-oriented design. The application of this design philosophy led to the development of a hierarchy of software components that are manual controller independent and also have a standardized interface. Reusability of these components is supported through generality and extensibility. The key design requirements for this architecture were: open-system, reusable, application independent, extensive error-handling and safety checking, applicability to real-time control and simulation, and reduction in program development time. This paper discusses the software analysis and design issues that were faced to meet the architecture requirements. Further, this architecture is demonstrated using four different manual controllers and a teleoperated dual-arm robotic manipulator