An Intelligent Industrial Arm Using a Microprocessor

A system to control a hydraulic industrial arm using a 4-bit microcomputer is described. A supervisory minicomputer can handle global routines such as scene analysis and task and trajectory planing while the microcomputer attends to the control of the arm. The microcomputer monitors arm joint positions and sensors, and maintains current joint position when no motion is desired. The supervisory minicomputer transfers a job to the microcomputer in the form of a sequence of macro-commands. The microcomputer interprets and executes the job and returns the final status of the arm to the minicoputer.