Universal Controller Module (UCoM) - component of a modular concept in robotic systems

At our institute we built a variety of robots. As these robots are quite different as well in size, shape and in actuation principle it would be very time consuming and inefficient to build a computer and hardware architecture especially tailored to the specific robot. In this paper it will be described how common aspects in robot control can be identified and how a modular software framework and a respective computer architecture can be mapped to modular components on the hardware side. A decentralized computer architecture based on embedded PC systems connected to local controller modules via CAN-bus was developed. The requirements and restrictions that led to the development of these controller modules and their associated power amplifier boards will be described.