Abstract: A robotic system including a manipulator arm for moving a device to a predetermined point within a working volume under control of microprocessor based control unit. The manipulator arm includes various sections and joints defining a base, a shoulder, an arm and a wrist. The wrist is jointed to pivot about a pitch axis and a roll axis. The manipulator is arranged to pivot the arm about the base axis and shoulder axis, which axes intersect at a common point. The arm includes a section which is extendable through the use of telescoping links. The wrist is mounted on the end of the telescoping links, with the pitch and roll axes intersecting at a second point. The second point lies along the extension axis of the arm links and is spaced from the shoulder-base axis intersection point. The links forming the telescoping section are arranged to move in unison with each other. A motor and associated harmonic drives are provided to effect the motion at the joints.

Abstract: In a robotic apparatus having a manipulator arm including plural motors to move the arm to predetermined spatial positions and a control system for the arm, a common bus and common memory connected to the bus. The control system comprises respective microprocessor based controllers for each of the joints, microprocessor based computation means for performing the mathematical computation to control the trajectories of the arm and common microprocessor based coordinating control system for coordinating the activities of the other modular microprocessor based control system. Accessing routine is associated with the bus for providing each of the microprocessor based control system with direct, exclusive access to the bus during respective time intervals. The common memory serves as a depository for messages to and from the microprocessor based control system to enable intercommunication between the microprocessor based control system accessing the bus.