Design and implementation of a flexible controller for robot manipulators

This paper deals with the design and implementation of a flexible controller which is suitable for different types of robots and control algorithms. The flexible controller allows use of different control modes at the various joints of the robot. The controller uses a multiprocessor architecture for the individual control of each joint. The DSP56001 digital signal processor is selected as the host processor, executes control algorithms and gives trajectory orders to each joint. The HCTL-1100 is selected as the joint processor and is capable of operating in different modes can be connected directly to an incremental optical encoder, provides the user with options to fit different specialized applications and eliminates extra hardware