Mechatronic design and control of a robot system interacting with an external environment

In this paper, an efficient mechatronic approach is used to integrate various components of a robot system interacting with an external environment. Both hardware and software integration are considered in the development of the open-architecture experimental platform. Real-time control software is developed to provide optimal use of the hardware components and available processing capability. Extensive experiments for a surface following robot task are conducted using the experimental platform. Emphasis is given to two important aspects, rate of sampling and data filtering. To minimize feedback and control algorithm switching delays, various modes of operation that involve efficient data communication and data filtering are considered and compared via experiments. Applications of the developed experimental platform include robotic surface following and surface finishing operations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.