Next Generation Autonomous Industrial Robot Test Bed

Equipment:
 
 
 
 

Funding Source:

Designer: 
(i)
(ii)
(iii) (iv) (v)

(i)
 

(i)
6-degree of freedom CRS Plus Inc. A460 robot 
PC486 microcomputer
Transputer microcomputer system
laser printer 
ATI force/torque sensor

NSERC Strategic Grant
 

Mr. Thomas Chang (research engineer) 
 

     The following figure illustrates this commercially supplied robot test bed. The objectives of research that will utilize this test bed are to test and evaluate the performance of robot contact task controls, in the presence of robot structural compliance and other effects of significance.
     The utilization of this commercial robot as a test bed was made possible through an agreement with CRS Plus Inc. for the "right of first refusal" on certain technologies that arise from our work. CRS Plus is interested in developing a commercial robot with active force control. With results from this NSERC Strategic Grant funded work, this goal will be achieved. The robot shown is one of five robots released to users that utilize a new transputer based computer architecture permitting full access to all internal signals. Without such access to signals as well as detailed technical information, we could not convert this robot to a test bed to serve our purposes.
     A full-time research engineer, Mr. Thomas Chang, devoted his time to development of new software and hardware modifications to permit the CRS Plus robot to be modified for our research. Users of this facility have included Peter Chen, Peter Goldsmith (Ph.D. students), Jerry Ng, Adi Rabadi (M.A.Sc. students) and Kai Sing Lam (M.Eng. student).


CRS Plus 6-Degree of Freedom Robot Test Bed