FYP Synopsis

Design & Implementation of Robotic Arm that

copies human arm

2013-EE-72 | 2013-EE-79 | 2013-EE-92 | 2013-EE-99

 Abstract

This report covers the basics of the project, related disciplines, information of the
group members, roadmap and literature for further reading. The objective of this
project is to build a controller that considers the motion of a person’s arm as the
input and uses it to control the motion of a slave-like crane or a robotic arm. The
master controller will be a wearable that will employ different sensors to get the
motion of the person’s arm.
 Group Information

Group Leader
Arslan Ahmad (2013-EE-72)

Group Members
Muhammad Ibraheem (2013-EE-79)
Mohsin Ahsan (2013-EE-92)
Khawar Nabi Shah (2013-EE-99)

Contact Information
Phone: +92 345 7148321
Email: Arslan.ee72@gmail.com

Advisor
Mr. Umer Shahid
 Objectives

 Design of controller that reads the person’s arm’s movement as input

 Design of slave arm that operates uses the designed control

Phases of Project

1. Selection of Implementation of Arm

Two types of implementations are proposed. i.e. exact copy of human arm
or any application using hand gestures, e.g. to control a crane or grabber.

2. Selection of low cost sensors

Based on the market survey and the internet for the sensors with the lowest
possible cost, some possible techniques are either the accelero-gyroscope or
a special shaped potentiometers placed on a wearable arm for detecting the
motion of the person’s arm.

3. PC interface of sensors
The sensors will be interfaced with the PC using a development board like
Arduino or STM32. These boards will use the Analog-to-Digital Converters to
display the sensor raw data on some software like NI-LabVIEW or MATLAB.

4. Extraction of useful information from the sensors

Normally the sensors provide a large amount of raw data, all of which is not
of use. Therefore, it is necessary to apply some algorithms to extract the
useful data required from the sensors. One such algorithm is the Kalman
filter.

5. Power arm design

The slave arm will be designed according to the selected implementation.
The materials used will be affordable, robust and easily available in the
market. The arm will have 4 to 5 axes of motion.
 6. Selection of actuators
The available options are hydraulic based, pneumatic based or servo motor
based. Hydraulic uses fluid pressure, pneumatic uses air pressure and servos
are electric motors. For hydraulic system, we will also need electronic control
of hydraulic valves. A suitable and low-cost system will be selected to
demonstrate the basic operation

Benefits

The benefits of this controller are better and easier control of large moving
machines like cranes that are operated by complex control panels with multiple
levers and switches/buttons. After the basic design, other improvements will be
made as well.

Related disciplines

1. Kinematics:
Kinematics is the branch of classical mechanics which describes the
motion of points/particles, bodies/objects, and systems of bodies without
consideration of the masses of those objects and the forces that may have
caused the motion.
Kinematic analysis is the process of measuring the kinematic
quantities used to describe motion. Kinematic analysis is used to find the
range of movement for a given mechanism and kinematic synthesis is
used to design a mechanism for a desired range of motion

2. Inverse Kinematics:
Inverse kinematics refers to the use of the kinematics equations of a
robot to determine the joint parameters that provide a desired position
of the end-effector. Specification of the movement of a robot so that its
end-effector achieves a desired task is known as motion planning. Inverse
kinematics transforms the motion plan into joint actuator trajectories for
the robot. The Jacobian inverse technique is a simple yet effective way of
implementing inverse kinematics.
3. Control Systems
A control system is a device or set of devices that manages, commands,
directs or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems.
There are two common classes of control systems, open loop control
systems and closed loop control systems. In open loop control systems
output is generated based on inputs. In closed loop control systems
current output is taken into consideration and corrections are made
based on feedback. A closed loop system is also called a feedback
control system.

Roadmap Summary
The work will start from mid-summer or start of 7th semester. Most of
the theoretical work will be covered during the summer vacations. The
main duties of the team-members will be:
2013-EE-72: Programming and debugging
2013-EE-79: Theoretical Calculations and programming
2013-EE-94: Hardware Implementation
2013-EE-99: Hardware Implementation
With almost 9 months or approx. 40 weeks, at least 3 to 5 hrs. per week
will be allocated to the project. So we will have 200+ hrs. to complete
the project. Each phase will be completed in max. 2 to 3 weeks.

Further Reading
1. Robot manipulators: mathematics, programming, and control : the
computer control of robot manipulators
2. Introduction to Theoretical Kinematics
3. Smoothing, Filtering and Prediction: Estimating the Past, Present and
Future

References
1. Thomas Wallace Wright (1896). Elements of Mechanics Including
Kinematics, Kinetics and Statics. E and FN Spon. Chapter 1.
2. J. M. McCarthy and G. S. Soh, 2010, Geometric Design of
Linkages, Springer, New York.
3. Tsai, Lung-Wen (2001). Mechanism design: enumeration of
kinematic structures according to function (illustrated ed.). CRC
Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-8493-0901-4.