A generic software architecture for control of parallel kinematics designed for reduced computing hardware

Miniaturized robots become more and more common for handling and assembly of miniaturized products. This miniaturization usually refers to the actuators, the kinematics and the sensors, but also the control electronics and their computational resources are affected. Facing these restrictions, the present article discusses patterns of robot control software that can be transferred from architectures proposed previously to microcontroller platforms. It is proposed to organize the software components according to two aspects: timing context and organizational context. Results from a case study are reported, where the architecture was implemented for a parallel kinematic five-bar robot. This study concludes that the underlying patterns help to implement control software of miniaturized robots in handling and assembly efficiently, even if hardware resources are limited.