Hybrid modeling and simulation for the design of an advanced industrial robot controller

This paper proposes the application of discrete event and hybrid modeling in the architectural design of a new commercial robot controller featuring force control capabilities. A case study is considered and architectural aspects, such as distribution of functions over a multiprocessor structure, communication among processors and sensors and task scheduling and synchronization, are modeled and simulated together with the arm continuous time dynamics. In particular, the interaction between robot position control and force control has been investigated, exploiting the features of a specific simulation tool for the design and evaluation of the real-time control strategies and of the hardware/software architecture.