Robot control unit for educational purposes

A standard serial 6-DOF industrial robot was equipped with an electronic control unit designed especially for educational purposes. A fast Ethernet LAN with UDP communication allows a real-time control from a PC, which runs a widely used scientific software. Even inverse and direct kinematics are computed on the PC and hence are available for education. The configuration allows interactive reaction to sensor signals or image processing applications. In a student project a motion sensing device for video games was implemented for interactive control of the robot with the human body.