Design and control of a 7 DOF redundant manipulator arm

Abstract

With the development of science and technology, robots have become an integral part of human life. To ease human efforts in tedious and repetitive tasks, robots are used in human platforms. The current analysis is focused on the design and development of a robotic manipulator to perform pick and place like operations. First, the kinematic analysis is performed on different links of the designed manipulator to know its workspace and singularity. Each link of the manipulator is modelled in SOLIDWORKS software and simultaneously imported to V-REP software. In the V-REP software, links are grouped to form the manipulator arm. Each link is attached to a joint. After formation of the manipulator arm, simulations for different physical operations are performed. While performing different physical operations with the manipulator arm, graphical analysis is performed for position, velocity and acceleration of revolute joints. The force required for the prismatic joint to hold the object is also calculated. The results obtained from the simulation analysis reveal that the manipulator can work satisfactorily in the practical environment. Finally, the results are compared for manipulators of different degrees of freedom to obtain the workspace required for a smooth operation. The current study holds a large importance in robotics field as mobile manipulators are extensively used in different industries and the same analysis can also be extended towards other forms robots.Abbreviation: DLS: Damped Least Square DH: Denavit-Hartenberg V-REP: Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform IK: Inverse Kinematics