Publications Details
Cooperating robot arms LDRD 95-T-00027. Final report
This report describes work conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Project entitled {open_quotes}Cooperating Robot Arms,{close_quotes} which was conducted from October 1, 1994, to September 30, 1996. Multiple cooperating robot arms are necessary for handling large ungainly objects, for achieving greater rigidity through mutual bracing, and for transferring and fixturing parts in a flexible fashion. There has been significant research in the area of robot arms, and yet there has been little commercial acceptance of these approaches. There are three primary reasons for this lack of success, the inability to deal with different kinematic modes of the system in a simple fashion, the difficulty in programming multi-robot behaviors, and a failure to apply this technology to realistic problems. The LDRD research described in this document addresses these critical areas. The report is divided into two primary sections, representing the thrusts of each year of research. First, the theoretical feasibility of building a modular control system for multiple robots which allows rapid reconfiguration of control system parameters for multi-arm modes of operation is demonstrated. Second, a high-level graphical programming environment which makes programming complex multi-robot tasks simpler is described.