An Architecture for Real-Time Sensory-Interactive Control of Robots in a Manufacturing Facility

Published

January 1, 1982

Author(s)

James S. Albus, Charles R. McLean, Tony Barbera, M L. Fitzgerald

Abstract

A hierarchical architecture is described for a robot integrated into a real-time sensory interactive factory control system. In this architecture, high level goals are decomposed through a succession of levels, each producing strings of simpler commands to the next lower level. The bottom level generates the drive signals to the robot actuators. Each control level is a separate process with a limited scope of responsibility. Each performs the generic control function of sampling its input and generating appropriate outputs. The input is characterized by three types of data--a command from the next higher level, processed sensory data, and status feedback from the next lower level. The outputs are of three types-- a command to the next lower level, a request for sensory information to the processing module at the same level, and a status feedback to the next higher level. This paper describes this generic control structure and its implementation in a real-time sensory- interactive control system for a manufacturing facility.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 4th International Federation of Automatic Control Symposium

Conference Location

, USA

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

hierarchical architecture, robot, integrated systems, factory control systems

Citation

Albus, J. , McLean, C. , Barbera, T. and Fitzgerald, M. (1982), An Architecture for Real-Time Sensory-Interactive Control of Robots in a Manufacturing Facility, Proceedings of the 4th International Federation of Automatic Control Symposium, , USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=821191 (Accessed October 27, 2025)