A structured methodology for the design and implementation of control and supervision systems for robotic applications

The adoption of a structured development methodology, based on a design cycle and on formal reference models, is a key issue to manage, possibly in a step-by-step fashion, the design of industrial control and supervision systems, as there are in modern robotic applications. In the present work, a development technique is illustrated, which extends some of the most relevant solutions and methods used to effectively deal with the design of complex control systems and integrates them into a structured methodology with analysis and simulation facilities. The main discriminating features of the presented framework are: the object- oriented approach, compliance with international standards for control software specification, hybrid dynamic models and automatic code generation. The development and implementation of a robot mission for a 6 degree-of-freedom manipulator is illustrated to highlight the benefits and advantages of the proposed methodology.