An open architecture for position and force control of robotic manipulators

In this paper a low cost open architecture PC-based axis controller for robotic applications is described. The system is based on an available low price commercial PC interface board and the controller software runs totally on a Pentium 100 MHz computer in order to control a robotic axis. The driving kernel of software for supervisory, management and control was developed in a high level language (C++) and enables the analysis of several position and force/position control strategies for research and practical applications. The experimental results for the given position and force trajectories reveal promising position and force tracking results for the experienced control algorithms