REDUNDANT TELEOPERATOR AND ROBOTIC MANIPULATORS

THE RECENTLY DEVELOPED NOVIX COMPUTER USES THE LANGUAGE FORTH AS ITS NATIVE ASSEMBLY CODE THEREBY OFFERING THE FLEXIBILITY OF HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING WITH ASSEMBLYLANGUAGE EXECUTION SPEED. THE RESULT IS A HARDWARE/SOFTWAREPERFORMANCE COMBINATION THAT CAN ONLY BE SURPASSED BY COMPLEX AND EXPENSIVE PARALLEL PROCESSING SYSTEMS. THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED WORK IS TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOP A NOVIX-BASED CONTROL SYSTEM FOR AN ELECTROMECHANICAL SERVOMANIPULATOR. THE GOAL IS TO PROVIDE A CONTROL SYSTEM WHICH ALLOWS THE MANIPULATOR TO FUNCTION EITHER AS A TELEOPERATED SYSTEM FOR NON-REPETITIVE OPERATIONS, OR AS A ROBOT FOR REPETITIVE TASKS-A TELEROBOTICCONTROLLER. USING THE CONTROL SYSTEM DEVELOPED, ALGORITHMS WHICH OPTIMIZE THE CONTROL OF KINEMATICALLY REDUNDNAT MANIPULATORS WILL BE EXPLORED. REDUNDANT MANIPULATOR KINEMATICS ALLOW LOCAL OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE IN CLUTTERED ENVIRONMENTS COMMON TO POWER PLANTS AND POSE A CHALLENGING CONTROL PROBLEM. THIS EFFORT WILL DEVELOP A MANIPULATOR CONTROL SYSTEM WHICH IS COMPACT, VERSATILE, AND ECONOMICAL ALLOWING FUTURE APPLICATION OF MANIPULATION SYSTEMS TO POWERPLANT MAINTENANCE OPERATIONS. THE CONTROL SYSTEM DEVELOPED WOULD HAVE APPLICATION TO BOTH COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE MANIPULATOR SYSTEMS AND TO THE REDUNDANT MANIPULATOR MECHANISM WHICH WILL ALSO BE DEVELOPED DURING THIS EFFORT. FUTURE ELECTROMECHANICAL HARDWARE WOULD BE DESIGNED TO UTILIZE THIS CONTROL SYSTEM AND TO MEET MAINTENANCE NEEDS OF SPECIFIC DOE FACILITIES.