MIMIC’D ABILITIES – TOOLS, TOOL CHANGING, AND ROBOTIC CONTROL

Research is currently underway to improve controllability of high degree-of-freedom manipulators under a Phase II SBIR contract sponsored by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC). As part of this program, the authors have created new control methods as well as adapting tool changing technology onto a dexterous arm to look at controllability of various manipulator functions. In this paper, the authors describe the work completed under this program and describe the findings of this work in terms of how these technologies can be used to extend the capabilities of existing and newly developed robotic manipulators.