Design of a PC-based Open Industrial Robot Control System Integrated with Real-Time Machine Vision*

This paper presents a new industrial robot control system integrated with real-time image processing based on a Windows PC. This enables both machine vision and robot control tasks to be carried out on a single general-purpose computer rather than using two separate systems to perform different tasks. To accomplish this, a three-layer software structure is developed along with a series of standard peripheral devices in the hardware layout. Real-time performance of the system is tested and we demonstrate the system on a DELTA parallel manipulator. Experimental results show that the manipulator can pick up 120 objects on a moving conveyor per minute. This work demonstrates the feasibility of integrating real-time machine vision tasks with robot control tasks without dedicated hardware.