Designing a Robotic Arm | Project Log

Technology vector created by macrovector — www.freepik.com

Welcome to yet another blog series that traces the progress of our project, “Robotics Arm/manipulator design — The best way”. This is an attempt to review the methods of designing a robotic manipulator and to conclude on the best method yet. This Blog post is an introductory post for this project.

About Us: We are a team of three Mechatronics Engineering students. I, Vigneshwar, am the team lead. My project mates are Aman Dinodaya and Naveen. This project is a part of our learning process.

RoadMap

The general approach is to learn the mechanics behind the working of the robotic manipulator, control theory, then convert them into code base and create a generalised model to design any robotic manipulator. Physical model will also be made to test the applied methods physically, but the generalization is aim to be applicable for most if not all sorts of applications.

In this project we are not inclined towards using programming libraries and tools made specifically for robotics right away just to get our job done, at least not at this point. This is because, as previously mentioned, this project is a part of our learning process. So, even if we come to a point where we need to use premade tools, it will be only after we understand its working.

All our learnings and progresses will be constantly updated through this blog series.

Sources

The sources we are learning from are listed below:

• “Robot manipulators: mathematics, programming, and control”, Richard P Paul
• Modern Control Engineering”, by Katsuhiko Ogata
• Brian Douglas — Youtube Channel

These are the sources we are currently learning from. This list will be updated as we refer more sources. Link to this list will be provided on each blog of this series.

Tools and Programming Language

1. We are using C++ for the programming the code base due to its speed of execution and extended community support.
2. Autodesk Fusion 360 will be used for modelling and simulation of robotic parts.
3. For any kind of data visualization we will be using blender 3D.
4. Controller will be Arduino and parts are going to be 3D printed(thanks to Naveen) with ABS plastic.If you are interested in this project feel free to follow me.

This projects scope is wider, since generalizing the design of an robotic arm is will serve as reference to a lot of automation projects. Any contribution to this project is welcome. Contact me via LinkedIn to collaborate(links are provided in about us section). If you are interested in this project feel free to follow me.

Thanks for reading, Have a nice day.