A distributed I/O low-level controller for highly-dexterous snake robots

Author

Thienphrapa, Paul ; Kazanzides, Peter

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD

fYear

2008

Firstpage

9

Lastpage

12

Abstract

A robot can be seen as a set of actuated joints, each connected to a processing unit that senses feedback signals and generates actuation commands. For robots with high locomotive sophistication, commonly seen in medical robotics, the requisite cabling and control processing can become unwieldy. Motivated by dexterous snake-like robots for minimally invasive surgery, this paper explores the use of IEEE 1394 (FireWire), attached directly to low-latency field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), to distribute I/O and centralize processing. This increases the viability of complex medical robots by reducing cabling and consolidating processing, thereby making systems more agile, reliable, and scalable.

Keywords

actuators; controllers; distributed control; feedback; field programmable gate arrays; medical robotics; surgery; FireWire; IEEE 1394; actuated joints; actuation commands; cabling; control processing; distributed I/O low-level controller; feedback signals; field-programmable gate arrays; highly-dexterous snake robots; locomotive sophistication; medical robotics; minimally invasive surgery; processing unit; DC motors; Field programmable gate arrays; Hardware; Medical robotics; Minimally invasive surgery; Process control; Prototypes; Robot sensing systems; Shafts; Spine;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference, 2008. BioCAS 2008. IEEE

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2878-6

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2879-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BIOCAS.2008.4696861

Filename

4696861