WIRELESSLY SYNCHRONIZED ROBOTIC ARM

Muhammad Adeel Chaudhari Muhammad Adnan, Muhammad Ajmal,

Electrical Engineering Department, Dr.Imran Shafi, Dr. Aamer Ahmed Baqai,
Military College of Signals(MCS), Rizwan Latif
Rawalpindi, Pakistan Department of Mechanical Engineering,
adeel45@gmail.com College of Electrical &Mechanical Engineering (CEME),
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
adnan.chaudhry@outlook.com, ajmal.shahzad@gmail.com,
nabeel_x2@yahoo.com,imran.shafi@gmail.com,
aamer.baqai@ceme.nust.edu.pk, rizwanlatif95@yahoo.com

Abstract This design of a robotic arm replicates casual human

arm motion via bend sensors. The system consists of a bend
sensor system attached to the human user and a teleported
robotic arm that mimics the users casual motions. The robotic
arm is designed to be lifelike but simplified. User motions are
sensed by bend sensors, processed by a central microcontroller,
and replicated by servo-motors on the robotic arm. The wireless
units are tested for transmission and reception of digital signals.
The wireless system will then be connected to microcontroller
and compatibility and functionality between them will be
checked. The accuracy and resolution of the motion data
collected by the sensors will be tested, as well as the compatibility
of the sensors with the microcontroller. Throughout all of the
testing and analysis, C programming will be written, tested,
debugged, and retested. The problem of intuitive operation is
mostly attributed to the type of interface available to the user,
and the time taken to master the input controls. Haptic feedback
requires that forces that the robotic arm experiences are
translated back to the operator in some sort of physical means,
which greatly increases the ability to perform dexterous
operations. The schema of a master-slave controller of a tele-
operated anthropomorphic robotic arm with gripping force
sensing was introduced in and the design of a wireless bilateral
master-slave controller was presented in. The control rig is a
Figure 1.1: Setup of Robotic Arm with wireless transmitter
glove-like device, covering the hand. It measures six degrees of
freedom amongst four joints: thumb and forefinger, wrist, elbow,
and shoulder. Planar movement, such as elbow movement, or loration. Robots have also been influential in the media,
vertical movement between the wrist and forearm is measured profitable for toy manufacturers and also provide a safe tool
using flex sensors, a lightweight component that increases for humans.
resistance when bent. Industries have benefited drastically from the stretch of a
robotic work force. Automated machines have taken over the
Keywords-component; pic 18F452, haptic control, flex duties of risky and everyday jobs from humans, allowing
sensor,RF control,vaheical controll management. superior efficiency. Because robots dont have any feelings,
they are never tired and, as a consequence, extra shifts have
I. INTRODUCTION been supplemented to factories. Farmers have also taken
Robots, through the middle Ages and before were used advantage of new knowledge with automated harvesters; the
primarily for entertainment. However, from its beginning, the municipal industry has also implemented robots in its dirtier
20th century featured a drastic boom in the development of jobs, and the medical industry benefits, the most, from the
industrial and commercial robots. Throughout the rest of the advancements in assisted surgical robotics.
20th century, robots altered the structure of society and The idea of a factory with no humans has come to execution.
permitted for safer conditions for not only labor but also A multinational company, IBM, runs a "LIGHTS OFF"
common man. In addition to this, the discharge of advanced factory in Texas. It is completely staffed by fully autonomous
robotics in the military and, as an example, NASA has robots making computers.
changed the scenario of national defense and outer space exp-
The military has also initiated and implemented various
programs in robotic technology, most deadly and successfully
the Reaper unmanned aerial reconnaissance and attack vehicle
that allow an operator (pilot) to control the drone from vast
and safe distances. The vehicle can perform high-altitude
surveillance and ground attack for long periods without having
a support of a live pilot, and when needed, the planes can
launch precision strikes on targets in hostile zones.
The accuracy and precision of robots can also be increased if
the robot has a physical shape of that of a human body part,
say a hand or a leg. If such a robot is made operational, it can
perform multiple tasks as compared to conventional robots.
Medicine has employed robots and has been successful more
than any other discipline. It has resulted in saving the lives of
millions of people and continues to do so. Since robots are
more precise and accurate, their preference over human hands
is ever increasing.
Today, robots are the sole reason for every type of luxury that
we enjoy. From luxury cars to ATM machines, all provide us
the easiness in life.
FIGURE 1.2 FLOW CHART OF WSRA
II. DESIGNING OF ROBOTIC ARM
2.1 Metal Selection
Working on a robotic arm requires that the material chosen to
make the arm should be strong as well as light. For this
purpose we chose steel sheets which were not only light and
rust resistant but also strong.
With such qualities our robotic arm is capable of lifting and
working with heavy and heated objects without the fear of a
breakage.
a. Brass with steel joints
was complete but we faced problematic dilemma. The combi-
nation of these two produced chemical reactions at the atomic
levels causing the robotic arm to rust especially at the joints
where the pivots were fixed.
b. Complete steel structure
This was a wise step since now the whole body and the pivots
on the joints were to be of the same material i.e. steel. This
avoided rusting and our friction problems were also somewhat
reduced considerably. It also brought complete uniformity and
the visual appearance of the robotic arm was also improved.
Therefore we decided to go with this structure and had to
abandon our initial structure with brass joints.
2.2. Car Controll
For car controlling at the receiver end the hardware include
relay driver circuit. In software part the packets are sending by
the transmitter in VCM.
2.2.1. Hadware of Car Controll
For the motor control as it is known that microcontroller
cannot provide the required current to rotate the dc motors so
some sort of driver is required. So therefore we use relay
driver circuit which will switch the relay on the logiv from the
microcontroller as shown in the figure below.
Servo motor for
left and right
movement
Figure 2.1 CAR CONTROLLING WITH RELAY DRIVER
2.2.3. Relay driver
The relay driver circuit is shown on next page in figure 2.2.
When the microcontroller gives a logic 1 ti the relay driver
circuit the relay is switched. So power goes to the motor so it
can be controlled in any direction.
2.3. Software
2.3.1. Mikro C
Micro C is used for programming and making GUI of the
system. It caters for processing speed. It has tools for
programming and debugging C++ code. It provides third party
software compatibility
 portc.f1=0;
portc.f2=0;
}
if(portb.f4==1 && portb.f5==0)
{
portc.f1=1;
portc.f2=0;

Figure 2.2 RELAY DRIVER CIRCUIT

2.3.2. Proteus

Proteus is used by us for running various simulations of our

circuit designs. It has pin pointed various errors in our design
and has led us to our final circuitry which has been almost free
of errors now.

2.3.3. Win Pic.

This software has been extensively used by us to burn the

microcontroller. It not only burns the microcontroller but also
indicates whether there is an error or not. It can be easily
installed on Microsoft Windows XP operating system easily.
Operating system used is Microsoft Windows 7 and XP.

The packet received at the receiver end is decoded. According

to the finger moved the respective signals are output by the Figure.2.3 Flow Chart (software Part)
microcontroller output pin defined. The code below is only for
car controlled part at receiver end. The complete code is also
2.4 Robotic Arm Motion
given in the document
2.4.1 RC Servos
////////// DC forward //////////
if(portb.f2==0 && portb.f3==0 && portb.f4==0 && RC servos are hobbyist remote control devices servos
portb.f5==0) typically employed in radio-controlled models, where they are
{ used to provide actuation for various mechanical systems such
portc.f1=0; as the steering of a car, the control surfaces on a plane, or the
portc.f2=0; rudder of a boat[1].
}
if(portb.f2==1 && portb.f3==0) Due to their affordability, reliability, and simplicity of control
{ by microprocessors, RC servos are often used in small-scale
portc.f1=0; robotics applications we also used them.
portc.f2=1;
} RC servos are composed of an electric motor mechanically
///////// DC reverse //////// linked to a potentiometer. A standard RC receiver sends pulse-
if(portb.f4==0 && portb.f5==0 && portb.f2==0 && width modulation (PWM) signals to the servo. The electronics
portb.f3==0) inside the servo translate the width of the pulse into a position.
{ When the servo is commanded to rotate, the motor is powered
until the potentiometer reaches the value corresponding to the
commanded position.
RC servos use a three-pin 0.1" spacing jack (female) which
mates to standard 0.025" square pins. The most common order
is signal, +voltage, ground. The standard voltage is 4.8 V DC,
however 6 V and 12 V has also been seen for a few servos.
The control signal is a digital PWM signal with a 50 Hz frame
rate. Within each 20 ms timeframe, an active-high digital
pulse controls the position. The pulse nominally ranges from
1.0 ms to 2.0 ms with 1.5 ms always being center of range.
Pulse widths outside this range can be used for "over travel" -
moving the servo beyond its normal range. This PWM signal
is sometimes (incorrectly) called Pulse Position Modulation
(PPM).[2]
Figure 2.4 servo positions with respect to input pulse cycle
The servo is controlled by three wires: ground, power, and
control. The servo will move based on the pulses sent over the
control wire, which set the angle of the actuator arm. The
servo expects a pulse every 20 ms in order to gain correct
information about the angle. The width of the servo pulse
dictates the range of the servo's angular motion.
A servo pulse of 1.5 ms width will typically set the servo to its
"neutral" position or 45, a pulse of 1.25 ms could set it to 0
and a pulse of 1.75 ms to 90. The physical limits and timings
of the servo hardware varies between brands and models, but a
general servo's angular motion will travel somewhere in the
range of 90 - 120 and the neutral position is almost always at
1.5 ms. This is the "standard pulse servo mode" used by all
hobby analog servos[3].
The servo motor we have opted is FUTABA S3003 (3-pole),
because for the finger movement it can produce enough torque
to bend it.
2.4.1 Specifications Of Futaba S3003
VOLTS TORQUE SPEED
4.8v 3.2kg/cm .23sec/60
6.0v 4.1kg/cm .19sec/60
Table 2.1 Futaba s3003 Specifications
2.4.2 Flex Sensor
A flex sensor is physically a thin strip which is flexible in
nature, it is able to change the resistance depending upon the
amount of bend produced on the sensor. The resistance is
directly proportional to the deflection caused by bending the
sensor. Flex sensors are analog resistors[4].
Flex sensors are basically made of carbon material and a
flexible substrate. Carbon is present on the plastic strip in the
form of discontinuous patches, which when bend is brought
closer to each other thereby increasing the overall resistance.
Figure 2.5 Typical Flex Sensor
More the carbon less the resistance. When the sensor is bent,
it produces a resistance value which is relative to the bend
radius. The range of sensor resistivity is between 9k and 35
k[5].
The flex sensors give the corresponding resistance based on
the bend. This resistance is converted into voltage using
voltage dividers. A voltage divider uses two resistors in series
to divide the input voltage by the ratio of the resistances. To
measure the voltage corresponding to the resistance, we need
to keep one resistance value constant and the other as variable
resistance. This variable resistance is obtained by connecting
the flex sensor.
Figure 2.5 BEND CASE ILLUSTRATION
2.4.2.1 Mechanical Specifications
It has a life cycle of greater than 1 million bends, height of
0.43mm (0.017") and temperature range of -35C to +80C.
2.4.2.2 Electrical Specifications
When flat its resistance is round about 10K Ohms, resistance
tolerance of 30%. In case of full bend resistance ranges from
60K to 110K Ohms.
Power rating is 0.50 watts continuous supply with 1 watt peak
power.

2.5 RF Module
A radio wave is an electromagnetic wave propagated by an
antenna. Radio waves have different frequencies, and by
tuning a radio receiver to a specific frequency you can pick up
a specific signal.
An RF Module is a (usually) small electronic circuit used to
transmit, receive, or transceiver radio waves on one of a
number of carrier frequencies.
The performance of the overall system may be improved by
using matched antennas at each end of the communication
link, such as those described earlier.
Finally, the labeled remote distance of any particular system is
normally measured in an open-air line of sight configuration
without any interference, but often there will be obstacles such
as walls, floors to absorb the radio wave signals, so the
effective operational distance will in most practical instances
be less than specified[7].

3.0 RADIO FREQUENCY TRANSCEIVER MODULES

3.1 Transmitter
At the transmitting end the module used is TLP 434A

Figure 2.8 RF Module

Several carrier frequencies are commonly used in

commercially-available RF modules, including 433.92MHz,
315MHz, 868MHz and 915MHz.
Figure 3.1 Pin Diagram of Transmitter Module
When attaching an external antenna to an RF Module, superior
performance can be achieved by selecting an antenna length 3.2 Features
related to the wavelength of the carrier frequency. For a
315MHz Module, use a 24 cm antenna length, while for a
Certain features of TLP 434A are:
433.92 MHz, use 18 cm antenna.
Its frequency of operation is 433.92 MHZ, it uses ASK
2.5.1MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING RF MODULE PERFORMANCE modulation for transmission of data bits[8].
Other features include circuit shape of SAW, maximum date
rate of 8K bps and supply voltage of 2-12V.
As with any other radio-frequency device, the performance of
Below is a brief description of other parameters such as
an RF Module will depend on a number of factors. For
Transmitter output power, etc.[10][11]
example, by increasing the transmitter power, a larger
communication distance will be achieved. However, this will
also result in a higher electrical power drain on the transmitter
device, which will cause shorter operating life for battery
powered devices. Also, using a higher transmit power will
make the system more prone to interference with other RF
devices, and may in fact possibly cause the device to become
illegal depending on the jurisdiction [6].

Correspondingly, increasing the receiver sensitivity will also

increase the effective communication range, but will also
potentially cause malfunction due to interference with other Table 3.1 : TLP 434A Parameters
RF devices[9][10].
 3.3 Receiver to Ms. Mahnum Maqsood, Product Manager DigiMac Hi-
At the receiving end the module used is RLP 434A. Technologies, for her enormous help without which the
documentation process of our project could not have
completed. We also thanks to Mr Abdul Moiz Jadoon,Saad
Qasir and Hammad Hassan.

FIGURE 3.2 PIN DIAGRAM OF RECEIVER MODULE
Certain features of RLP 434 A are: Its frequency operation is
433.92 Mhz, demodulated ASK modulated data bits and
supply voltage of 5-6 volts. Below is brief description of
parameters[9].
Table 7.3 RLP 434a Parameters
4. CONCLUSION
All componets worked very fine and it can be used in
hazardeous enviroment due to wirelessly shycronization. The
movement of rombotic arm is solw due to high power
consumpution rate of Servo motors so large power source is
required.This is arm is unable to lift heavy weights.The range
of Radio Reciver and transmiter is very low.
7. REFERENCES.
[1] Eugine L. Ragonnet, Controlling Mechanism for Locomotives, U.S. Patent
930,225, Aug. 9, 1909.
[2 ]IEEE Industry Applications Magazine March/April 1996, pg 74
[3] G. W. Younkin, Industrial Servo Control Systems - Fundamentals and
Applications - Second Edition, Taylor and Francis, 2007.
[4] L. Dipietro, A. M. Sabatini and P. Dario. Evaluation of an instrumented
glove for hand-movement acquisition. Journal of Rehabilitation. Advanced
Robotics Technology and Systems (AR TS) Laboratory, 2003.
[5] H. J. Luinge,P. H. Veltinkb and C.T. M. Baten.Ambulatory measurement
of arm orientation. Journal of Biomechanics. University of Twente, 2005.
[6] F. Egan, William (2003). Practical RF System Design. Wiley-IEEE Press.
ISBN 978-0-471-20023-9.
[7]A Smart Antenna Receiver Array Using a Single RF Channel and Digital
Beamforming by Jonathan D. Fredrick, Student Member, IEEE, Yuanxun
Wang, Member, IEEE, and Tatsuo Itoh, Fellow, IEEE
[8]Ohira T, Suzuki Y, Ogawa H, Kamitsuna H. Megalithic Microwave signal
processing for phased- array beam forming and steering. IEEE Trans
Microwave Theory Tech 1997;45:2324-2332.
[9] Design Formula for Inset Fed Microstrip Patch AntennaM. Ramesh and
YIP KB Motorola, PINANG, MALAYSIA.
[10]Mailloux RJ. Phased array antenna handbook. Artech House; 1994. p 480-
490
[11]Litva J. Digital beamforming in wireless communications. Artech House;
1996.

5. FUTURE WORK

Implement a bank of ultra-capacitors to help protect the

batteries from the peak current draw of the motor controllers
by providing a short supply of high current when needed.
Provide adequate power and incredible sensitivity to detect
even the smallest possible movement. Provide safe control
through redundant systems. GSM Network can replace with
Radio Control.

6.ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Special thanks go to our Lec Obaidullah Khalid, Faculty
member of Electrical Engineering, Military College of
Signals, National University of Sciences and Technology.
Great deal of appreciation goes to Mr. Shahid head of Science
World, Rawalpindi, for helping us in many problems that
occur during the project. We also wish to extend our gratitude