Robot control system

Claim 2

A robot control system for concurrently performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed loop servo control in response to a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedbock transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, characterised in that the system also includes memory means for storing a sequence of recorded link position commands; first means, including a first computer, for sequentially retrieving stored robot link position commands for each robot link from the memory means, calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer, and outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position; a second computer for executing control functions in the robot control system not performed by the firs± computer; and a common bus coupled to the memory means and to the first computer and the second computer, each said computer being a bus master computer capable of initiating communication on the bus.

Claim 3

The' improvement of claim 1 in which the first means includes means for calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer and for outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position, and in which the first computer comprises means for sequentially retrieving stored robot link . position commands for each robot link from the memory means on the bus and for coupling the commands to said calculating and outputting means.

Claim 4

A robot control system for performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: a first computer; a second computer; a common bus coupled to the first computer and to the second computer, each computer being a bus master capable of initiating communication on the bus; and axis controller circuit means for calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer and for outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position, the first computer and the second computer cooperating to provide means for sequentially retrieving stored robot link position commands for each robot link and for coupling said commands to the axis controller means.

Claim 5

A robot control system for performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: a first computer; a second computer; a common bus coupled to the first computer and to the second computer, each computer being a bus master capable of initiating communication on the bus; and axis controller circuit means for calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer and for outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position, the first computer and the second computer cooperating to provide means for sequentially retrieving stored robot link position commands for each robot link and for coupling said commands to the axis controller means.

Claim 6

A control system as claimed in any of the preceding claims including mass memory means coupled to the bus for storing sequences of recorded link position commands, a buffer memory coupled to the bus and in which the first computer is coupled to a control input and is responsive thereto to read a sequence of recorded link position commands from the mass memory means and to write said sequence of recorded link position commands to the buffer memory, and in which the second computer is operable to couple the sequence of recorded link position commands from the buffer memory to the axis controller circuit means.

Claim 9

6 . A robot control system for performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to.a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: memory means for storing a sequence of recorded link position commands; a buffer memory; a common bus coupled to the memory means and to the buffer memory; supervisory computer means coupled to the bus for reading a stored sequence of recorded link position commands from the memory means and for_writing said sequence of recorded link position commands to the buffer memory; axis controller means coupled to the bus and to each link position feedback transducer of the work robot for calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer and for outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position; manipulator computer means coupled to the bus for retrieving link position commands from the buffer memory and for coupling said link position commands to the axis controller means; and each said computer including means for writing signals to the buffer memory and each said computer including means for reading the signals written to the buffer memory by the other computer so that each computer can monitor the continued operation of the other computer.

Claim 10

6 . A robot control system for performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to.a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: memory means for storing a sequence of recorded link position commands; a buffer memory; a common bus coupled to the memory means and to the buffer memory; supervisory computer means coupled to the bus for reading a stored sequence of recorded link position commands from the memory means and for_writing said sequence of recorded link position commands to the buffer memory; axis controller means coupled to the bus and to each link position feedback transducer of the work robot for calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer and for outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position; manipulator computer means coupled to the bus for retrieving link position commands from the buffer memory and for coupling said link position commands to the axis controller means; and each said computer including means for writing signals to the buffer memory and each said computer including means for reading the signals written to the buffer memory by the other computer so that each computer can monitor the continued operation of the other computer.

Claim 11

A robot control system for concurrently performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: means, including a first computer, for sequentially retrieving stored robot link position commands for each robot link, calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer, and outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position; means, including a second computer, for performing robot control functions; a common bus coupled to the first computer and to the second computer, each computer being a bus master capable of initiating communication on the bus; and memory means, inculding a particular memory location, coupled to the bus, the first computer including means for periodically writing to said memory location and the second computer including means for periodically reading said memory location and for producing an indication of a fault condition if the first computer fails to write to said memory location at at least a certain rate.

Claim 12

A robot control system for concurrently performing a number of robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed-loop servo control in response to a stored sequence of recorded link position commands in which each robot link has an associated link actuator and a link position feedback transducer which provides a feedback signal correlated to link position, comprising: means, including a first computer, for sequentially retrieving stored robot link position commands for each robot link, calculating a link position error signal in response to a retrieved link position command and the link position feedback signal input from the associated link position feedback transducer, and outputting the link position error signal to the associated link actuator to drive the link to a command position; means, including a second computer, for performing robot control functions; a common bus coupled to the first computer and to the second computer, each computer being a bus master capable of initiating communication on the bus; and memory means, inculding a particular memory location, coupled to the bus, the first computer including means for periodically writing to said memory location and the second computer including means for periodically reading said memory location and for producing an indication of a fault condition if the first computer fails to write to said memory location at at least a certain rate.

Claim 13

S . A method of performing a number of work robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed loop servo control, in response to a recorded sequence of link position commands, in which routines in several separate computer program process modules are executed, comprising the steps of: (a) executing a program process in a process module to perform a work robot control function up to a program step identified as a suspend location in the process; (b) writing redispatch conditions as a redispatch word for the process into a process entry table in a computer memory location; (c) comparing a system event word representative of present conditions with each redispatch word for the processes in the process entry table; (d) executing a process whose redispatch word matches the system event word in regard to one or more conditions; and (e) repeating the steps (a) through (d) to perform the work robot control functions.

Claim 14

S . A method of performing a number of work robot control functions including driving a work robot having a number of articulated robot links under closed loop servo control, in response to a recorded sequence of link position commands, in which routines in several separate computer program process modules are executed, comprising the steps of: (a) executing a program process in a process module to perform a work robot control function up to a program step identified as a suspend location in the process; (b) writing redispatch conditions as a redispatch word for the process into a process entry table in a computer memory location; (c) comparing a system event word representative of present conditions with each redispatch word for the processes in the process entry table; (d) executing a process whose redispatch word matches the system event word in regard to one or more conditions; and (e) repeating the steps (a) through (d) to perform the work robot control functions.

Claim 15

The method of claim 8 in which in the step (c) the system event word is compared with a redispatch word for each process in sequence so that the comparison is not made twice for a process before it is made once for every other process.

Claim 16

The method of claim 9 which comprises the additional steps, after the step (d), of: (dl) identifying a process in the sequence of processes as a diagnostic process; and (d2) executing the diagnostic process if, since the redispatch word of the diagnostic process was last compared with the system event word, no other process has been executed.