An open architecture for sensory feedback control of a dual‐arm industrial robotic cell

Purpose – To present an open architecture for real‐time sensory feedback control of a dual‐arm industrial robotic cell. The setup is composed of two industrial robot manipulators equipped with force/torque sensors and pneumatic grippers, a vision system and a belt conveyor. Design/methodology/approach – The original industrial robot controllers have been replaced by a single PC with software running under a real‐time variant of the Linux operative system. Findings – The new control architecture allows advanced control schemes to be developed and tested for the single robots and for the dual‐arm robotic cell, including force control and visual servoing tasks. Originality/value – An advanced user interface and a simulation environment have been developed, which permit fast, safe and reliable prototyping of planning and control algorithms.