Importance

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Abstract

The partitioning of circuitry and software on electronic boards in a robot control is arranged to enable respective controls for varied types of robots to be readily assembled and packaged with use of a few standard boards. The basic control system is formed from an arm interface (AIF) board and a torque processor (TP) board and a servo control (SCM) board. The AIF board has a VME bus terminated in multiple pin connectors for interconnection with the TP and SCM boards and any other boards or additional units to be included in a particular robot control. An AIF connector is also provided for TP board connection on a VMX bus. Robot controls with extended control performance are packaged by including additional boards. For example, the system control board includes a VME bus connector for connection to the AIF board to provide a robot control with higher control capacity. Input/output devices such as programmable controllers, peripherals such as CRTs, and supervisory computers can also be coupled to the control through AIF interconnectors. The AIF board contains robot dependent circuitry so that different AIF boards can be used to assemble different controls for different robots. For example, different board circuitry is used for absolute position feedback as opposed to incremental position feedback or for brush type DC motors are opposed to brushless DC motors.

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First Claim