A General-Purpose Robots Simulation System on IBM-PC

The paper discusses the design and the implementation of a general-purpose robots simulation system, ZDRSSS, which can simulates various types of industrial robots in real time. ZDRSSS focuses on the simulation of robots' kinematics, mechanism and trajectory planning, on the test of forward and inverse kinematic algorithms, and on the, test of forward and inverse differential kinematic algorithms. The system works with man machine communication. In addition to common interactive methods,ZDRSSS is equipped with a graphic Interactive system. This is a 3D graphic processing system. It can produce the 3D continuously changed pictures of robots and of their work environment. The geometric model creator consists of 12 classes of solids in order to set up the geometric models of robots. The animated cartoon of the system vividly describes the kinematic features of robots. In ZDRSSS,many new ideas and methods are explored, such as design of robot mathematical model and robot geometric model, display of animated cartoon, back-screen management, fast picture generating algorithm based on the concept called fundamental graphic element transformation, and all optimal plotting algorithmg. Supported by IBM-PC basic system with 8087, ZDRSSS is programmed in C languake ( 13000 lines) and assembly language (3000 lines).