Motion Control for Any Robotic System

Real-Time Adaptive Control

The Actin^® SDK can be used to create real-time controllers for robotic hardware. The Actin control framework is built on a powerful motion constraint and optimization engine.

With the Actin SDK, roboticists are free to focus on what the robot does and where the hands and tools should be, not on how they get there. For mechanisms with redundant kinematics, hand and tool motion can be accomplished in an unlimited number of ways. Actin automatically takes advantage of this kinematic redundancy for robot collision avoidance, joint limitation avoidance, minimized motion, optimized strength in robotic control and more.

Motion Optimizations

Actin runtime selects among multiple possible kinematic solutions to produce an optimized solution based on weighting of multiple factors. This is computed at rates of 250 to 500Hz. Optimization weighting options include:

• Collision Avoidance
• Joint Limit Avoidance
• Singularity Avoidance
• Strength Optimization
• Minimum Kinetic Energy Control
• Minimum Potential Energy Control
• Simulation-Based Control
• Error Reduction
• Failure Recovery
• User Defined

Motion Constraints

The motion of the end effector and other reference frames on the robot can be constrained by limiting motion in one or more degrees of freedom For example, a 3D point constraint limits the linear motion (x,y,z) but allows free rotation motion in (r,p,y). While you can specify your own custom motion constraints, many pre-configured constraints are provided with Actin.

• 3D Point
• 3D Orientation
• 3D Pose
• 2D Point
• Planar
• Tracked Motion
• Wheeled Motion
• Center of Mass
• Linear Constraint
• Spatial Momentum

Actin can import models from CAD formats and includes a plug-in for SolidWorks. Actin can control virtually any robotic mechanism—both off the shelf and custom designs. Actin executables can be accessed directly or via network interfaces. And Energid engineers are standing by for support that provides the ultimate adaptive experience.

Features

Dynamic Motion Control. Actin responds and adapts in real time, adjusting its paths based on the perceived environment.

• Windows
• Linux
• QNX
• Additional RTOS support upon request

Simplified Programming. Actin runs at a task level rather than joint-by-joint and motion-by-motion. Designers and engineers can use Actin’s simple EcScripting language to specify part-based tasking. The scripting language can generated on the fly and used to control Actin runtime. The advantage - changing the robot kinematics and the work space requires little or no change to the tasking scripts. But if deeper access is desired, Actin is also programmable via a powerful C++ API.

Dynamic Collision Avoidance. Because Actin motion planning happens on the fly, advanced behaviors like collision avoidance become more dynamic too. Actin Robot Control doesn’t just stop its systems to avoid collisions but rather moves its robotic assets out of each others’ way in real time.