A generic kinematics software package

Abstract

A generic kinematics-based design, simulation and control software package called Generic Motion Control (GMC) software has been developed at Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, New York, USA. It enables automatic generation of control software for robot manipulator systems and diverse industrial automation machines. Functionality provided by the software includes a kinematics description language and compiler for generating symbolically optimized ANSI C control software, a basic kinematics package for performing coordinate transformation, a trajectory generator module for high-level commands, a calibration module for tuning the kinematic model, and a 3D color graphics module and a graphical command interface for simulations. The software is written in the ANSI C programming language and can be installed on a variety of operating systems including Unix and DOS. The following paper focuses on the capabilities and possible applications of the software package in robot control.