INTRODUCTION:

Abstract:

The objective of this project is the development of a six degree-of-freedom articulated

robotic arm which will be controlled by a computer application. Motors to support the
expected torques are chosen from a commercial supplier. Finally, a gripper is attached to
the wrist making it possible for the robotic arm to grip light objects. The design of the
gripper is also under the scope of the project.

Introduction:

An articulated robot is a robot with rotary joints (e.g. a legged robot or an industrial

robot). Articulated robots can range from simple two-jointed structures to systems with
10 or more interacting joints. They are powered by a variety of means, including electric
motors.  Articulated robots can be used to lift small parts with great accuracy. They are
also known as a jointed-arm.

Figure 1: Commercially available robotic arm with 5 DOF

The articulated robot arm has a trunk, shoulder, upper arm, forearm, and wrist. With the
ability to rotate all the joints, a majority of these robots have five degrees of freedom.
Axis 1 - Arm sweeps from side to side
Axis 2 - Shoulder moves forward and backward.
Axis 3 - Elbow moves up and down.
Axis 4 - Middle of forearm pivots up and down.
Axis 5 - Wrist moves up and down.
Movement is made in two ways: pitch is up and down movement, and roll is rotation.
This mobility allows articulated robots to be used for tasks such as welding, painting, and
assembly.
Normally a robot-arm should have 6 DOFs to easily reach every point of the work-space
at different incidence-angles. This might be important for example if the hand is used to
drill holes, which must be done at a given drill-angle. The sixth degree of freedom is the
yaw motion of the wrist (sideways movement).
MATHEMATICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Mathematically it may be shown that you need exactly three independent coordinates to
fix a point in space. Let's imagine a Cartesian robot-arm which allows three orthogonal
translation-movements (TTT) of the hand. The approach differs a lot from the rotational
RRR-system. In this case any point is defined by M(x, y, z):

Figure 2: TTT system Figure 3: RRR system

We note that our robot-arm may reach M through bowing shoulder Q1, elbow Q2 and
wrist Q3 and rotating shoulder-base Q0. Q4 has no positioning influence. It only allows
the claws to grab at a better angle. So strictly speaking we have only 4 DOFs. With a
closer look we notice that the points M, O1, O2, O3, always are situated in the same
plane, when Q0 is rotating.

Thus every point may be fixed by looking at Q0 and the two-dimension coordinates of
the M in the rotating plane P.

In most of the cases points are initially defined and entered by Cartesian coordinates in
what is so called the world coordinate-system. In a first step these world-coordinates have
to be transformed to those coordinates in the (O1, O2, O3) plane and a certain unique
value of Q0. With the observation that by rotating Q0, the y-coordinates are the same in
the world-system and in P, the x-coordinate in
P is deduced by Pythagoras theorem.
 Figure 3: view from above

Defining a point M(x, y) in a plane with rotations of three segments is obviously possible,
but presents some important ambiguity. In fact there are infinite possibilities in
determining M in terms of (Q1, Q2, Q3). This gives the robot a lot of freedom, but also
the necessity of choice, which is the second step to operate.

Figure 4: Many solutions exist for reaching one point

There are many ways to deduce Q1, Q2 and Q3 from M(x, y). The following section
describes one of the simplest.

Geometrical Solution
 Figure 5: Geometrical Solution

Given the robot-arm with lengths a, b and c; given the point M(x, y); given the circle with
center O1 and radius a.

We arbitrarily fix the radius r2 of the circle with center M respecting the restrictions that
at least one intersection of both circles exist and that r2<=b+c. We choose one of the
intersections as point O2. The point O3 may be fixed through the intersection(s) of the
circle with center M and radius c and the circle with center O2 and radius b.

This geometrical approach graphically gives us the three points O1, O2 and O3 as circle
intersections. The angles Q1, Q2 and Q3 may be easily deduced.
Materials to be used:

The robotic arm is