Mechatronic design and control of a robot system interacting with an external environment Prabhakar R. Pagilla * , Biao Yu School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078-5016, USA Received 26 July 2000; accepted 27 February 2001 Abstract In this paper, an efficient mechatronic approach is used to integrate various components of a robot system interacting with an external environment. Both hardware and software inte- gration are considered in the development of the open-architecture experimental platform. Real-time control software is developed to provide optimal use of the hardware components and available processing capability. Extensive experiments for a surface following robot task are conducted using the experimental platform. Emphasis is given to two important aspects, rate of sampling and data filtering. To minimize feedback and control algorithm switching delays, various modes of operation that involve efficient data communication and data fil- tering are considered and compared via experiments. Applications of the developed experi- mental platform include robotic surface following and surface finishing operations. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Mechatronic systems are becoming common in many engineering applications [1]. The goal of a mechatronic approach is to take all the advantages that can result from an integrated design considering the best properties of the compo- nents within the system. In the 1980s, significant progress of microcomputer and power electronic technology made more complicated control algorithms realizable in mechatronic systems. In recent years, the emphasis of mechatronic systems is shifting Mechatronics 12 (2002) 791–811 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-405-744-6579; fax: +1-405-744-7873. E-mail address: pagilla@ceat.okstate.edu (P.R. Pagilla). 0957-4158/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0957-4158(01)00029-0