CONDOR: an architecture for controlling the Utah-MIT dexterous hand

The authors describe a fully implemented computational architecture (CONDOR) that controls the Utah-MIT dexterous hand and other complex robots. The architecture derives its power from the highly efficient real-time environment provided for its control processors, coupled with a development host that allows flexible program development. By mapping the memory of a dedicated group of processors into the address space of a host computer, efficient sharing of system resources between them is possible. The software is characterized by a few simple design concepts but provides the facilities out of which more powerful utilities such as a multiprocessor pseudo-terminal emulator, a transparent and fast file server, and a flexible symbolic debugger could be constructed. >