ZROBOT: a new CAD/CAM environment to program robot control by animated graphics

Abstract

The control of a robot consists in: computing the space environment of the mechanical arm ordering the robot movements collecting informations on the status of the physical arm (feedback) in order to make computations again and correct the movements. The engineer who has to build a control application for a robot is confronted to various main problems: the problem of understanding and building the various elementary actions of the robot, depending on the physical features of the electro-mechanical arm (mechanical characteristics, motors, sensors, signals etc…) the problem of specifying the logical control of the robot : i.e. building a working model of the desired movements using computations corresponding to the robots' physical features the problem of translating the movements model into a real-time language (syntax problem and adaptation problem of the model to the language structure) the problem of using the real-time primitives of an operating system so that to synchronize the robots' various actions in order to build complex movements.