DSP-based motion control of master-slave manipulator system developed for use in pyroprocess research facility

A bridge-transported dual-arm master-slave servo-manipulator system (BDSM) was developed for the remote manipulation at a pyroprocess research facility. The slave manipulator with a reach of 1.6 m can handle a 25 kgf payload in any posture, while the master manipulator reflects forces of up to of 5 kgf to the operator. The BDSM is a complex robotic system with 35 degrees of freedom. Therefore, accurate and reliable servo-control is the basic requirement for the BDSM to accomplish the given tasks successfully in a hot-cell environment. In this regard, all the hardware and software of a DSP-based remote control system was developed and implemented to control the BDSM. Furthermore, to achieve a good tracking performance as well as systematic gain tuning, we applied a time delay controller. The experimental results show that the time delay controller performs the master-slave tracking task well compared with the conventional PD controller.