MoRC is a high-performance modular robot controller based on the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard. The goal is to control any (industrial) robot with electrical drives using a customizable vendor-agnostic control cabinet and an innovative, self-developed software architecture based on exchangeable multi-rate real-time control components with standardized interfaces. On the hardware side, the use of EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) allows connecting a freely selectable number of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) electrical drives and sensors. On the software side, this is matched with exchangeable control software modules based on the FMI standard. Those can be interconnected for forming user-defined multi-rate control structures which can be executed as synchronized real-time threads on a central Linux-based multi-core computing unit. That unlocks additional computational potential for advanced high-frequency control algorithms. Control structures can be switched at runtime to handle highly diverse control tasks. This paper presents the architectural concepts as well as first experiments on an industrial robot testbed.

In recent years a new generation of motion simulators, based on serial kinematics industrial robots, emerged as alternative to the currently prevalent Steward-platforms. This paper presents the newest addition to this: The DLR Robot Motion Simulator. Part I covers the design process and gives a detailed introduction of the setup. The overall layout of the simulation platform and its parts is introduced. To meet the requirements of an interactive simulation, a new piloting cell had to be designed using light-weight construction and real time vehicle simulations were required. Another key issue of the whole design is the guarantee of safety. The simulator utilizes a 10m linear axis to increase its workspace to provide a better simulation experience compared to previous designs of motion simulators with serial or parallel kinematics. Part II introduces a new path planning algorithm for the kinematically redundant simulator platform, required for the generation of appropriate motion cues. Furthermore the application artistic-flight simulation is demonstrated and validated.