23-05-2012, 11:08 AM
Human Controlled Remote Robotic Arm
[attachment=22806]
Introduction
The Human Controlled Remote Robotic Arm (HCRRA) is a system created to maneuver a
robotic arm remotely, to perform simple tasks i.e. lifting and moving simple light weighted
object. We started this project with the idea that a system like this is presently used in
automated industries and tele - robotics. The input to control the robotic arm comes from a
sensor glove. The sensor glove we have used is an off the shelf data glove, which uses fiber
optic flexure sensors and accelerometers to detect motion. We have made use of the 5DT Data
Glove 5.
The user wearing the sensor glove can be at a reasonable distance from the robotic arm. Our
design uses RS232 interfaces and thus has a maximum allowable distance between user and
arm of 50 feet. This can easily be increased to up to 4050 feet by making use of alternate
interface cables.
Design Overview
Hardware
The HCRRA consists of three main modules that is the 5DT Glove with flexor sensors and
accelerometer, the robotic arm with a minimum of 4 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) of movement
and finally a multi-tasking computer system which will monitor sensor signals and hence
control the actuators in real time on the robotic arm.
Software
The software is divided into 3 main modules namely: The glove interface, Data Manipulation
and finally the Arm interface. The glove interface module interfaces to the Com port 1 serial
interface driver and polls for data every 500ms. Once this glove data is in, the Data
manipulation task collects the data, manipulates it and creates commands to drive the relay
interface. The Robotic Arm interface module collects these commands and drives the relays
via a serial interface through com port 0. All these modules must work in real-time else a
noticeable lag between the glove control and the actual actuation of the robotic arm will be
unavoidable.
Conclusion
This project was a great learning experience for us. We started a project with the idea of a
project, which would have the plasticity of future expansion, and also keeping in mind its
practical uses. We learnt new concepts on how to interface separate units of a system keeping
in mind all timing issues and making it real time. We also learnt how to use and configure off
the shelf units, to match our requirement. We believe our most enjoyable part of the project
was testing each section independently, and then testing the entire unit. This led us into many
issues, which we over came with minor, and sometimes major changes. This project taught us
to configure serial interfaces and manage 2 serial interfaces at the same time.
Finally we like to conclude by saying that this project can lead to many more practical
implementation and expansion into bigger and useful systems. One thing we would like to
have done if time permitted was to implement soft limits using the parallel interface of the
target.
[attachment=22806]
Introduction
The Human Controlled Remote Robotic Arm (HCRRA) is a system created to maneuver a
robotic arm remotely, to perform simple tasks i.e. lifting and moving simple light weighted
object. We started this project with the idea that a system like this is presently used in
automated industries and tele - robotics. The input to control the robotic arm comes from a
sensor glove. The sensor glove we have used is an off the shelf data glove, which uses fiber
optic flexure sensors and accelerometers to detect motion. We have made use of the 5DT Data
Glove 5.
The user wearing the sensor glove can be at a reasonable distance from the robotic arm. Our
design uses RS232 interfaces and thus has a maximum allowable distance between user and
arm of 50 feet. This can easily be increased to up to 4050 feet by making use of alternate
interface cables.
Design Overview
Hardware
The HCRRA consists of three main modules that is the 5DT Glove with flexor sensors and
accelerometer, the robotic arm with a minimum of 4 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) of movement
and finally a multi-tasking computer system which will monitor sensor signals and hence
control the actuators in real time on the robotic arm.
Software
The software is divided into 3 main modules namely: The glove interface, Data Manipulation
and finally the Arm interface. The glove interface module interfaces to the Com port 1 serial
interface driver and polls for data every 500ms. Once this glove data is in, the Data
manipulation task collects the data, manipulates it and creates commands to drive the relay
interface. The Robotic Arm interface module collects these commands and drives the relays
via a serial interface through com port 0. All these modules must work in real-time else a
noticeable lag between the glove control and the actual actuation of the robotic arm will be
unavoidable.
Conclusion
This project was a great learning experience for us. We started a project with the idea of a
project, which would have the plasticity of future expansion, and also keeping in mind its
practical uses. We learnt new concepts on how to interface separate units of a system keeping
in mind all timing issues and making it real time. We also learnt how to use and configure off
the shelf units, to match our requirement. We believe our most enjoyable part of the project
was testing each section independently, and then testing the entire unit. This led us into many
issues, which we over came with minor, and sometimes major changes. This project taught us
to configure serial interfaces and manage 2 serial interfaces at the same time.
Finally we like to conclude by saying that this project can lead to many more practical
implementation and expansion into bigger and useful systems. One thing we would like to
have done if time permitted was to implement soft limits using the parallel interface of the
target.