Robotic Arm Project

As student of the Robotics Engineering Masters Program at Mälardalens University, this year (the fourth year out of five) I had the chance to build and play with a robotic arm during two courses. Below there will be a series of videos that present the robotic arm thought its development steps, from a simple set of coordinates (step 1) to a dynamic model and control from a 3D simulation of the robot (step 2) to being controlled in real time either by a phone (step 3) or the muscles of a person (step 4).

The Industrial Robotics course (steps 1 to 3) was the main course where the robot took shape and the different methods of controlling it were tested. The second course, the Sensor Techniques (step 4) aimed to give an understanding between different senors and the environment and for the project part of the course I decided to use the robotic arm and use it to mimic a human arm.

Step 1: Servo test and object pick-up

Step 2 : Forward and Inverse Kinematics - Simulation and Physical

Step 3 : Mobile Phone Wireless Controller

Step 4 : Electromyography (EMG) control

Acknowledgements

The Arm is powered by an Arduino Uno connected to my laptop and a additional 5V power supply to be able to operate all servos at the same time.

The coding is done via MATLAB and for the Electromyography  (EMG) part a Shimmer Sensor is used along with the MATLAB drivers provided by the developer.

Three MG995 servo motors are used for the first 3 axis - The Base, Shoulder and Elbow - and three additional smaller SG90 micro servos were used for the other two axis - The Wrist Roll and Wrist Pinch - and for the Gripper mechanism.

The parts were 3D printed and used from the How To Mechatronics website where the original STL files can be found along with the tutorial on the assembly and wiring of the arm.

https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/diy-arduino-robot-arm-with-smartphone-control/