Real-time multi-processor-based robot control

This paper considers the real-time computational capability requirements of modern robot controllers. The control tasks are analyzed to obtain a lower bound on the number of mathematical operations required to generate the control signal. Then the stability of the sampled data control system is considered to estimate the maximum sample time based on stability. These bounds together with the analyses of the interprocessor communication channel bandwidth and the computation wordsize, a quantitative method of designing a (parallel or serial) computational structure for robot control is proposed. This analysis is applicable to a design utilizing custom VLSI or for a systolic array based system or a design with conventional discrete microprocessors.