A PROJECT ON DESIGN AND MOTION
ANALYSIS OF A ROBOTIC ARM
SEMESTER: 7th
SUBJECT: MINOR PROJECT
BRANCH: MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
SUBMITTED BY:
NAME Regd. No
Tekchand Sahu 1702090119
Vidisha Parida 1702090120
Menaka Baral 1702090055
L Priyaranjan Patro 1702090047
GUIDED BY: Dr. Swagatika Mishra
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A ROBOTIC ARM ALONG WITH ITS
MECHANISM
Abstract:
The main focus of this project was to design a 4 DOF robotic arm for picking & placing operations and
also to calculate the amount of torque generated at each joint and to analyze the motion characteristics of
the arm based on different load conditions. Since the motor provides the needed torque that carries the
links plus load; and the function of the system depends on the generated torque from the motor, therefore
it becomes essential to determine the maximum torque at each joint for proper motor selection. The
robotic arm was designed using the SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software and to conduct the Motion
Analysis and Simulation of the Arm. SOLIDWORKS software was chosen as it enables analysis and
simulation of the pick and place industrial robotic arm design. The 3D printing method is used in this
project to fabricate the components of the robotic arm to provide more precise dimensions and huge time
and cost-saving in fabrication. The robotic arm is equipped with 5 servo motors to link the parts and bring
arm movement. Arduino, an open-source computer hardware and software is applied to control the
robotic arm by driving servo motors to be capable to modify the position. The results of the simulation
study and motion study of the modeled articulated robot arm part and assembly are presented to
demonstrate the lift and place robotics system. After conducting various researches, generating a variety
of conceptual designs and verifying all requirements, the final product was produced.
Introduction:
In recent years, the use of robotic automation in manufacturing industries has increased tremendously.
Robotics has enabled flexibility in manufacturing processes that enables production of high quality goods
at relatively low cost. Robots that are able to perform task efficiently are now a requirement in most
factories. The most widely used robot in factories is Industrial Robotic arms. A Robotic Arm is a virtually
intelligent agent capable of carrying out tasks robotically with the help of some supervision. Practically, a
Robotic Arm is an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by means of computer and electronic
programming. A typical Robotic Arm has the following components: Links and joints, Actuators,
Controller, End-effector and Sensor.
Industrial robotic arms move much faster than human arms. They usually have some form of safety
package and sensors available to ensure the safety of human workers. An industrial robot arm not only
increases the speed of the manufacturing process, but also the accuracy and precision. These robotic arms
cut down on worker error and labor costs. While these robotic arms are used to lift huge items, palletize
heavy loads. Earlier Humans used to do all the tasks involved in the manufacturing industry by
themselves. But as the technology advances Robotic arm are being used for various tasks such as
welding, drilling, spraying and many more. Robotic Arms are generally designed to perform unsafe,
hazardous, highly repetitive, and unpleasant tasks with high precision and intelligence.
A self-sufficient robotic arm can be fabricated by using components like micro-controllers and motors
and by providing desired degrees of freedom. This increases their speed of operation and reduces the
complexity of the operations thus increasing the rate of productivity.
To enable efficient robots to be designed in the shortest time possible at a lower cost, various software
have been designed to help engineers in their development task. There are software that enables the
design and simulation of a Robotic Arm in various load conditions. This paper presents the design of an
industrial robot using 3D computer aided design (CAD) software called SOLIDWORKS. This software
was chosen as it had previously been used by other researchers and was able to help shorten robot
development time, increase the productivity of the robot designer and improve the speed and quality of
robot design. The main focus of the project was to design and development of a 4 DOF robotic arm for
lifting and placing operations with stumpy cost, accurate and superior control.
Actuators:
Actuators are devices that cause rotary joints to rotate about their motion axes, or drive prismatic joints to
slide along their motion axes. Generally, there are three types of fundamental actuating systems used in
robot systems: hydraulic actuating systems, pneumatic actuating systems, and electrical actuating
systems. Different actuators are available, each with their own pros and cons:
An Electric Actuator is powered by a motor that converts electrical energy to mechanical torque. The
actuator can be rotary or linear. It is appropriate for robots that do not require great speed or power, but
which do require accuracy and repetitiveness, as is the case of industrial robotics. Their use in this sector
is particularly advantageous over other actuators due to their simple installation, ease of control and
reliability. Electrical actuators are classified as direct current motors or servomotors, alternate current
motors, and step motor.
A Pneumatic Actuator uses stored energy from compressed air held through a metal piston system to
control the linear motion of a mechanism. This is a common type of actuator that is used in the field of
robotics in order to control claws of robotic arms. It is actuated by high pressurized air, allowing it to
generate very high forces and speed making it one of the powerful actuators. But as it involves high
pressure it generates large amount of noise and increases the costs of operation and maintenance.
A Hydraulic Actuator converts hydraulic fluid pressure into linear or rotary motion. Hydraulic actuators
are able to generate extremely large forces (at lower speeds) due to the incompressible property of liquids.
It the most powerful actuator in terms of torque generation but due high pressure it is expensive and often
leakage of the fluid occurs thus it requires constant surveying and reinforcement.
In our design Electrical Actuating Systems is used. DC motors and stepper motors are used to actuate
the movement of the robotic arm. This is because this system can be controlled easily and the servo motor
is able to give a fast response, high accuracy, included encoders which automatically provide feedback to
the motors and adjustability of position accordingly. However, the disadvantages of the servo motor are
that rotation range is less than 180 degree span, but it doesn’t affect the working of a Industrial robotic
arm.
Robotic arm communicated with user via Bluetooth module installed on the control system of robotic
arm. When a user slides each button on the application, input signal or controlling signal is given from the
paired Android smart phone and then sent via Bluetooth to the robotic arm. The data from the smart
phone is sent in the form of ASCII format in order to be received by the Bluetooth module and passed on
to Arduino for further operation. The Arduino detected the input of signal and converted them into
command, the robot then checked the command with its previously defined commands and the servo
motors acts accordingly depending on the command received from the microcontroller by moving
forward, backward, left, right or to stop. Thus, a smart phone Android operated robot is created to
perform lifting tasks.
Design:
Robotic arm system often consists of links, joints, actuators, sensors and controllers. The links are
connected by joints to form an open kinematic chain. One end of the chain is attached to the robot
base. The various parts of the robotic arm are as follows:
Fig 1: Robotic Arm
Base:
The base mainly consists of a motor that makes the arm attached to the shoulder rotate. The design is
slightly wider at the base. The base can rotate in 360° making it easier for user to lift and place things.
The rib design is added to the part to increase stiffness due to load applied to the part design. It
is a practical and economical way to increase the structural strength of a part to distribute the load
evenly as it is required to support large load applied by the object to be lifted, servo motor and
link.
Gripper:
The gripper used in our project is a mechanical gripper. It is used as an end effector in a robot for
grasping the objects with its mechanically operated fingers. In industries, two fingers are enough for
holding purposes. As most of the fingers are of replaceable-type, it can be easily removed and replaced.
The power produced is sent to the gripper for making the fingers react. It also allows the fingers to
perform open and close actions. Most importantly, a sufficient force must be given to hold the object.
When combined with other electric components, the gripper can be used as part of a "pick and place"
system that will allow a component to be picked up and placed somewhere else as part of a manufacturing
system. The base of the gripper can rotate 360 degrees so as to cover maximum possible workspace.
Shoulder:
It is the foundation for most modern robotic arms as it is the highest load bearing joint in the arm and has
the widest range of motion. It has three degrees of freedom. It is due to the movements of yaw, pitch and
roll. Shoulder motion can take place as pitch (up and down), as yaw (left and right) or as roll (rotation).
Elbow:
Elbow motion can occur only as pitch. The actuators situated in the elbow joint allow up and down
movement, i.e. movement in the y direction and also movement around its vertical axis. Elbow joint also
provides the wrist hand with Extension, Retraction, Reach around & Angular reorientation.
Wrist:
The wrist is used to orient the parts or tools at the work location. It consists of two or three compact
joints. The wrist has two movements pitch and yaw. The degree of freedom for its angular rotation is 90
degrees. It is one of the important component of the arm as it provides the direction to the gripper to hold
the object in accordance to the surface area of the object.
Calculations:
Fig 2: Load and Moments on Joints
We know,
Mass to be lifted by Arm
Gravitational constant
We have,
1. Weight of link 1
2. Weight of motor
3. Weight of link 2
4. Weight of gripper
5. Weight of load
6. Length of link 1
7. Length of link 2
8. Length of link 3
The values obtained from SOLIDWORKS are:
Taking the sum of forces about y axis,
Taking moment about C,
Taking moment about
Software Used:
SOLIDWORKS was used to design the Arm. The complete design was carried out through 5 major stages
in SOLIDWORKS which are Part Designing, Simulations of different parts, Assembly of the parts,
Motion analysis of the Design and Drawing of the parts.
According required size of the Arm and industry standards all dimensions were given while sketching
different parts which were then simulated in different load conditions to check the strength and
deformations of the parts and to provide a reasonable factor of safety. Once all the parts were finalized
they were assembled within the SOLIDWORKS using the assembly module with proper mate conditions
at the different assembly locations. Some degree of Restrain was provided at some joints to restrict the
degrees of freedom to certain extent. Translational restrain was provided to the gripper up to certain limit
while rotational restrain was provided at some hinge joints to limit the unwanted movement of the Arm.
Using SOLIDWORKS Motion Study all the hinge joints were equipped with motor, the torque of which
were calculated using motion analysis in a particular path during the pick and place operations. The
motion analysis was performed with different path and load conditions and the test results like motor
torque was plotted.
Motion Analysis:
One of the huge difficulties in robotics is knowing exactly how much torque goes through the motors
when the system is in action, so that the correct power-rating can be specified. Once the design is put into
production, if the motors used are too small they might not be able to lift the arm under gravity or move a
component quick enough. If a motor is too large on the other hand, the design becomes over-designed &
it will be heavier and more expensive than needed.
Fig 3: Predefined path along which the block was moved
The main aim of the project was to work out what torque would be required on the motors to lift and
move a specific load over a predefined path. A predefined semi-circular path as shown in Fig 3 is drawn
on the vertical plane from block A to block B and a small block of weight 20kg is assigned to the gripper
which had to move along the path by using path mate (shown in fig 4) during the pick and place
operation. The hinge joints were equipped with motors (shown in fig 5) for the motion analysis of the
Arm and the path was also equipped with path mate motor(shown in fig 6) which gives a smoothly
ramped transition from one block to another and the hinge mate displacements were extracted. Using
SOLIDWORKS’s Motion and plots (shown in fig 7) the graph between Motor torque and time was
plotted for the shoulder motor.
Fig 4: Path Mate Fig 5: Rotary motor
Fig 6: Path Mate Motor Fig 7: Result Calculations
These were saved out, then fed back into a second motion study using the elbow Motors. In this new
study, the motion was now being driven using the known displacements from earlier. Viewing the results,
this lead to the following output Torques on the motors
Fig 8: Plot between elbow motor torque and time
Fig 9: Plot between shoulder motor torque and time
Conclusion:
This paper presents the design and development of a robotic arm for low to medium weight material
lifting application. ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) is chosen for the fabrication of the robotic arm
using 3D printing to enhance the strength of the links and to reduce the fabrication cost and time. High
torque servo motor is used as the actuator and controlled via an Arduino UNO through coding. A user
interface in Servoarduino, an android application allows the user to control the movement without any
training needed so the robotic arm is user-friendly. The robotic arm is designed with four degrees of
freedom because it is suitable for most of the application included lifting .Therefore, it can be cost-
effective and simple construction by using only 5 actuators. This project helped us to learn a lot of things
regarding the design and Analysis of the Robotics Arm, and we hope that this report provides a
comprehensive understanding of our learning to the readers.
