EtherCAT based Multi-model robot controller

In this paper, we propose an EtherCAT based Multi-model robot controller. The controller engages EtherCAT as high speed industrial motion network to enable both force based robot motion control in real-time and digital interface of various sensor data for multi-model robot control. The controller is composed of PC-based Master Controller and Slave Interface Module, which makes it capable to easily interface different types of sensors. For robot control, real-time force interaction is essential to apply for various applications (ex. direct robot teaching, etc.). For the real time control, The PC-based Master Controller is designed using RTOS and EtherCAT network and the slave interface module has the capability to collect and transfer all sensor information of robot including force sensors to the master controller. It is proven by experimental results that the proposed system has real time controllability for robot control.