Bandwidth Management for Distributed Control of Highly Articulated Robots

An optimal bandwidth allocation policy for axis distributed control using networked control systems (NCS) is presented. First, the benefits of structuring highly articulated robots using networked control systems are discussed. Afterwards, an optimal bandwidth allocation policy for axes distributed control that allows to enhance robot tracking within the available bandwidth is introduced. It will be shown that axes control performance and thus tracking can be significantly improved by using feedback to dynamically allocate bandwidth to axis controllers as a function of the current state of each axis. Simulation results on a multiple axes robot corroborate our approach.