Richard Voyles' PUMA Page

This page contains useful information (manuals, diagrams, and other links) for people interested in retrofitting Unimation PUMA robots or writing low-level software. All the information is here for do-it-yourselfers or for commercial products. See my latest stuff at www.cs.umn.edu/~voyles

User's Manuals from Mark V Automation Corp. (formerly Trident Robotics):

TRC004 - Take over low-level control of PUMA manipulators (including wiring diagrams!) (PDF File)
TRC005 - VMEbus Interface for TRC004 (PDF File)
TRC006 - ISAbus (PC/AT) Interface for TRC004 (PDF File)
TRC200 - PUMA Amplifier Package (line powered)
TRC210 - PUMA Amplifier package (battery powered)
Example configuration diagram
TRC041 - PUMA Cable Card set (enabling near plug-and-play for a controls engineer)
TRC100 Turn-key Controller for PUMAs
PUMA100 VAL Emulation C Library for the TRC100 in PostScript and PDF

More up-to-date manuals are available on Mark V's web site with complete retrofit information and detailed instructions.

Mark V Automation Corp. is a spinoff of Carnegie Mellon and Stanford Universities that produces various low-cost products aimed at the robotics research community. Examples include the TRC004 PUMA Interface Board, which allows direct access to PUMA joint positions and torques, the TRC020 32-Channel D/A Board, an economical interface to the Utah/MIT Dextrous Hand, the TRC100 R3000-Based Real-Time Controller for the ISA bus (diagram), and the TRC200 replacement for the Unimation "silver cube".

Software drivers are available for Chimera, a Real-Time Operating System developed at the Advanced Mechatronics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and marketed by KKT, Inc., another CMU spinoff. There is also an executable and config file available for the PC for testing the TRC004/TRC006. (Also available in zip format with source code.)

A win16 DLL is available for PUMA100 owners.