Abstract
This paper describes a basic design of cooperative control system for multiple robot arms. In the system two robot arms and a vision sub-system have their own node controllers connected by a computer network. Cooperative control software developed is embedded in each node controller. Node software is written by object oriented programming technique. System model is constructed as a basis to represent and interpret cooperative task. To provide uniform measure to get external information of modeled objects in the real world, virtual information source-sensorlink-is designed. Real information sources distributed among node locations are transparently accessed by sensorlink. Task requirements imposed on the system are resolved to inner regulative laws. When motion trajectory of the task constrains two arms relatively, the laws leave degrees of freedom for actions of arms to give an alternative way of fulfillment. The example task executed is to push a button on the box held by one arm with the other's hand tip. Two arms move hands to suffice the laws using visual information through sensorlink. Then local node trouble in keeping the law-joint stop caused by given workspace-can be avoided using unconstrained degrees of freedom cooperatively.
