Dynamic programming based, computationally distributed control of modular manipulators in the operational space

The present work deals with manipulator arms characterized by the presence of an embedded distributed control system. More specifically, every single joint is assumed to be equipped with a simple local processing unit for properly driving its motion. As a consequence, each joint and the associated link may be considered as a defective "1-dof only" separately controlled atomic manipulator, which is required to act in team with all the other joints, in order to accomplish a global common task specified in the operational space. In this context the paper proposes a computationally distributed kinematic inversion technique that, via the on-line application of a dynamic programming technique (based on a moderate data exchange among the processing units), allows the establishment of a global self-organizing behavior; thus allowing to optimally execute the task by solely exploiting the control capabilities of each local processing unit, while not requiring any centralized knowledge about the overall arm geometry and kinematics.