Force Control of Musculoskeletal Manipulator Driven By Spiral Motors

This paper presents force control of musculoskeletal manipulator driven by spiral motors. The kinematic and dynamic properties are shown to address the presence of ennvironmental contact with the manipulator. From this contact, the force control schemes were explored, by comparing between monoarticular-only structure and biarticular structure manipulator. Force control schemes were divided into independent muscle control, end effector step force command, and muscular viscoelasticity control. The results show advantages of biarticular actuation compared to monoarticular-only actuation in the feasibility of magnetic levitation (gap) control alongside force control

Planar Task Space Control of a Biarticular Manipulator Driven by Spiral Motors

This paper elaborates upon a musculoskeletal‐ inspired robot manipulator using a prototype of the spiral motor developed in our laboratory. The spiral motors represent the antagonistic muscles due to the high forward/backward drivability without any gears or mechanisms. Modelling of the biarticular structure with spiral motor dynamics was presented and simulations were carried out to compare two control methods, Inverse Kinematics (IK) and direct‐Cartesian control, between monoarticular only structures and biarticular structures using the spiral motor. The results show the feasibility of the control, especially in maintaining air gaps within the spiral motor

Analysis of The Shape of Pressed Tarts from Image Processing

Monitoring quality of food processed in manufacturing industries is gaining its importance to ensure marketability in local and international markets. Food processed from manufacturing industries is usually graded in terms of quality; a shape defect would be regarded as a non-quality product and may be rejected or given away. In a semi or fully automated food manufacturing system, one of the most commonly used techniques is computer vision. This can be implemented by using a camera with a certain resolution and image processing to display results obtained. This project applies image processing technique to differentiate good and defective tart, according to its shape. The mold platform moves along with the conveyor by first reaching a pressing location (pneumatic cylinder) and later arriving under the view of the camera. A Raspberry Pi was used to connect the conveyor motor, pneumatic cylinder and the ultrasonic sensors. From the image acquired by the USB camera, the images are processed by edge detection and the number of circles identified for the tart and centroid position has been analyzed. The results show that a quality tart shape has number of circles less than 10, for the distance of the camera of 12, 15 and 18cm, with the 15cm distance from the camera gives a more accurate reading

Exploratory Study on Navigation System for Visually Impaired Person

Direction is arguably the most pressing concern for visually impaired person. Nevertheless, we lack a convenient navigation system to guide a visually impaired person using point to point direction to reach desired destination independently while walking on tactile paving. Accessibility of this navigation system must be convenient and simple for visually impaired people. In order to provide an efficient and user friendly assistive tool, it is proposed to design and develop a navigation system using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to guide the visually impaired walking on tactile paving. Path planning algorithm will be implemented in this project to give the shortest path and direction as a navigation guide for visually impaired people. This project will directly contribute to society by making available a convenient navigation system for visually impaired people for a better lifestyle

Performance Study of Developed SMART EYE for Visually Impaired Person.

Direction is arguably the most pressing concern for visually impaired person. Nevertheless, we lack a convenient navigation system to guide a visually impaired person using point to point direction to reach desired destination independently while walking on tactile paving. Accessibility of this navigation system must be convenient and simple for visually impaired people. In order to provide an efficient and user friendly assistive tool, it is proposed to design and develop a navigation system using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to guide the visually impaired walking on tactile paving. Path planning algorithm will be implemented in this project to give the shortest path and direction as a navigation guide for visually impaired people. This project will directly contribute to society by making available a convenient navigation system for visually impaired people for a better lifestyle

Investigation On Force Scaling For Multi Degree Of Freedom Bilateral Teleoperation Control System

A bilateral control system consists of two actuation systems which are separate but sends and receives information to and from each other. Information shared consists of calculated force and position readings from sensors which feed into the control system. When the actuation systems are in the form of robot manipulators, there are at least two degrees of freedom with each degree of freedom has its own force and position values. When these two systems operate simultaneously, a change in force and position for one system triggers the other to coordinate and attempt to maintain the same values of force and position at both sides and this is termed as a master-slave system. In most cases, both systems are identical and the amount of force and position desired is similar. In some real-life applications, the desired amount of force/position is scaled; i.e. smaller or larger force is desired at one end of the system (master/slave). For this purpose, this research proposes a method to scale the force at either master or slave side by using elements of the mass/inertia matrix of the robot manipulator. Four different scaling values were demonstrated in the experiments to show the validity of the proposed method. Results indicate that the method is viable as the forces were scaled correctly as desired

Earthquake Disaster Awareness System

Earthquake is type of natural disaster which is usually very fast and unpredictable. When this kind of disaster happens, people will usually panic and exit or run away from the facilities. Without proper guide and safety instructions, this might result in unwanted consequences, such as accidents, injuries or leaving behind family members or officemates. Due to this problem, a disaster (earthquake) awareness system is being developed. The system will at first calculate the amount of vibration in the soil of the earth. This calculation will be approximated to the Richter scale and if it is significantly large, will send safety instructions in the form of messages displayed at LED signboards available at important locations in the vicinity of the building. With this awareness system, if an earthquake happens, people will know what to do and where to go even if they are not trained with the disaster drill exercises

Design and Construction of 4-DOF EMG-Based Robot Arm System

Electromyography (EMG) provides an alternative way of providing signal responses from the muscle. As such, the recent trend in developing myoelectric devices has spark the interest in this specific field of study. This is because the traditional controllers lack in certain parts which reduce the utilization of limbs to control devices mainly the robotic arm. However, noise such as crosstalk, motion artifact, ambient noise and inherent noise have become a major issue when handling EMG signals. The preparation of electromyography requires more attention in terms of muscle group selection, electrode placement and condition of the surrounding as it will affect the signal output. The aim of this project is to develop a 4 degree-offreedom (DOF) robotic arm that can be controlled using EMG signals. The correlation between the EMG signal and the robotic arm are required to be identified in order to analyze the performance of robotic arm. Review on the actuator, electromyography methods and microcontroller are done to evaluate the techniques used from past researches. The methods of this project include hardware development of robotics arm, development of forward kinematic, sensor calibration and electrode positioning and experiment on classification and validation of EMG signals based on hand gestures. The experiment showed that the sampling rate and arm position affect the EMG signal output. In addition, the controllability of the robotic arm was low because the motors are controlled independently. The objective of the project has been achieved as the EMG-controlled robotic arm has been successfully developed. The robotic arm is still available for improvement by adding multiple channel sensors and implementing a wireless system

Simulation And Reproduction Of A Manipulator According To Classical Arm Representation And Trajectory Planning

The technical and vocational institutions are the key feeders for skilled human capital in the robotic revolution economy. It is essential to engage the students by creating new, affordable robotics at a fraction of the cost. This study presents the design and simulation of a six-axis robot manipulator specifically made for education and training. The robot was developed based on Chriss-Annin’s configuration. The robot arm was printed using Fused Deposition Modelling technique using the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene filament. Before it was constructed, the arm parameters were assessed using Scilab as the tool and the Ntraditional and fundamental methods: the Denevit-Hartenberg representation, the forward kinematics, the inverse kinematics, and the trajectory planning. The outcomes showed that the arm was working well on positioning and path planning. Therefore, the complete assembly of the robot should be able to assume a role in education and training. This work is an extension of the paper entitled “Lightweight Robot Manipulator for TVET Training using FDM Technique” published in 2018 Symposium on Electrical, Mechatronics and Applied Science 2018 (SEMA 2018)

Vision Based Identification And Detection Of Initial, Mid And End Points Of Weld Seams Path In Butt-Welding Joint Using Point Detector Methods

The main challenge in using welding robot is the time taken to program robot path for a new job in low to medium volume manufacturing industries or repair work. Because of that, it is cheaper and efficient to weld the part manually. This project intends to identify and detect the initial, mid and end point of weld seams path in straight line joints of stainless steel piecework which are typical to welding applications. The image piecework is snapped by charge coupled device (CCD) camera which is perpendicular between piecework. Weld seams path identification method is implemented in three stages; (1) pre-processing (2) reduced domain and (3) the weld seams path is identified. The point detection techniques is used to find the point of the images. Point detection techniques such as Harris Binominal, Harris, Lepetit and Sojka points were analyed to remove those points that does not belong to seam path. The experimental results show this systems can identify and detect weld seam path location in terms of x-y pixels coordinates. Result show that, Harris points detector is the best point detector compared to the other detectors which the identification error is around ±2.0 pixels for both coordinates which is row and column in starting and ending points of weld seams path