Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1990

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Mechanical Engineering

Major Professor

James A. Euler

Committee Members

Clement Wilson, Gary Smith

Abstract

One of the primary problems with most of today's industrial robots is the high cost. Many companies could benefit from a medium accuracy, high speed, low cost robot. This idea prompted International Business Machines, in conjunction with the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to support the development of such a robot. After preliminary design work a high speed, low cost, four degree of freedom, cartesian motion robot was designed and a prototype was built. Prior to the work in this thesis, the motion control requirements were for the robot to be capable of moving from point to point one axis at a time, and to be able to combine two axes for movement along the bisecting line between the two axes. For this thesis, the motion control requirements were increased and more demanding, especially in the area of control and versatility of the robot motion and software capability. Due to this increase in software requirements, changes in the system configuration, programming languages, and in the capability of the programs were necessary. This report describes the development of a software package that dramatically increases the control and versatility of the robot motion. The software control was written in two languages. The first program, written in Microsoft Assembly language, accomplishes the actual movement of the robot. This program is controlled by two Turbo C programs which create the environment and the user interface to the robot. This package enables the operator to move the robot anywhere within its three dimensional physical boundaries using any desired path. This movement can be accomplished through either a previously taught path or by direct operator control through cursor keys on the keyboard. When teaching a path the operator has the ability to specify position, modify the velocity of travel, make the robot pause, read input signals from other co-working machines, and operate the end effector or other output signals. The software package was written with the purpose that the robot operator would not be required to have any knowledge of the programming language or of how the robot operates to be able to master the robot controls and perform complicated tasks with minimal orientation. Included in this thesis are the requirements and specifications, software development, results, and the effort that has gone into meeting reliability standards.

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