March 3, 2011 - UK based software company DSPRobotics has teamed up with the US robot manufacturer LynxMotion to produce ‘FlowArm’ a new open source robot arm control software for education. The unique feature of this software is that is has been produced with the new graphical programming language for Mechatronics called ‘FlowStone. FlowStone brings complex programming tasks down to earth so that non programmers can write their own programs without the need for intimate knowledge of the PC. This is achieved by using graphical modules that are interconnected using on screen flexible wires more like an electronics circuit diagram, in fact FlowStone was developed for engineers not computer scientists.
Using FlowStone such tasks as Inverse Kinematics (IK) and servo control are available as pre-programmed modules, but with the added advantage of being open source so you can double click on a module and go inside, whilst still in the graphical environment, and modify the design if necessary. LynxMotion has sold thousands of robot arms into education and is planning to ship the compiled EXE of FlowArm with all of their future arm sale and also offer it free of charge to exiting arm customers. The source code or circuit diagram is also available free of charge to registered FlowStone users.
