In our modern society, the development of technological solutions has been in great focus and in the same chain, the usage of robotic arms is increasing day by day. Much of the Work in the industry is now done by robots. Even though they are able to do Very precise work, difficulties appear when trying to do some of the tasks that humans do. This can be changed by making it easy for a human to control the Robotic arm and to “program it” how it’s done.
The purpose of this project is to develop a robotic arm that is easily controlled by the user. This is done by using the user’s own arm movement to control the robot. To make the usage more intuitive, a simple haptic feedback system will be implemented. This creates a greater experience where the user is able to “feel what the robot feels”. To be able to create such a system, we have worked on the development of an easy control unit, robotic arm, and feedback system has to be made. The steering of the robotic arm is created by reading the user’s arm movement with potentiometers and mapping these values to servos on the robotic arm. Sensors on the robotic claw and on the user’s hand make it possible for a servo motor to create a counter torque that gives a feel for the size of the object being lifted.
The feedback system seemed to improve the overall experience of using a robotic arm and with further work, today’s robotic industry could be improved. The arm is made in such a way that a person without any knowledge about robotic control is able to control the robotic arm’s movement and it became possible by using a controller made in an intuitive way i.e controlling it with your own arm.
Conclusions For improving the control of robotic arms, using a control method based on your own arm movement is a concept that seems to be beneficial. Controlling a robotic claw with haptic feedback where the user can get some kind of feeling for the size of the object being lifted, improves the application of controlling a robotic arm. A simple feedback system for robotic arms could be very beneficial for the future of robotics in the industry. When the user and robot are in different places this could improve the application a lot. Using a potentiometer for registering the user’s arm movement and mapping this to servos seem to be simple yet a good way of controlling a robotic arm.
Utkarsh Tripathi
B.Tech (Electronics and communication)
batch 2017-21