Large Scale Manipulator

The Large Scale Manipulator is a pipe installation robot, built for Dupont, which is now used as a robotics test platform at the University of Texas at Austin.  It is a large, powerful robot whose joints are actuated with hydraulic cylinders and rotary actuators.  The robot's native movements are spherical, yet usually its gripper must traverse straight-line paths to avoid obstacles or to perform specified tasks.

Straight-line motion requires coordinated joint motions for the manipulator's six joints.  I created a custom controller in C++ to drive the six proportional control valves at rates to permit straight-line motion.  The control algorithm divided the straight-line paths up into small increments, performed the inverse kinematics calculation to see how far to drive each joint, and then coordinated the motion between joints to allow for this rectilinear motion.