High Speed Serial Manipulator
Finally, a chance to do an update. Here are some images of the robot arm, assembled, and finally controllable via inverse dynamics. Messy electronics, and some soldering fixes that I shouldn't be allowed to be working on in the garage, but I haven't yet caused a fire (although I tripped a fuse). Bolting the arm into the floor of the garage was the hardest bit (pun intended) since I had to buy a diamond drill bit to make holes in the concrete. The arm has some serious torque interaction dynamics if I don't bolt the base into the ground.
This is a long-term project that I've been working on - a high speed serial-link manipulator with closed-loop torque sensing, inspired by some of my Ph.D. work in the area of adaptive stiffness control. I've managed to revive the robot arm in my garage. The manipulator is designed using several actuators that consist of Harmonic Drive precision strain wave gears and a brushless motor with absolute encoders, resulting in a high torque, high speed, ultra-precise manipulator. Closed-loop torque sensing on each joint allows for precise computed torque control, and a force sensor at the tip allows for precise maneuvers that allow compliance estimation of objects. I'm currently reprogramming this robot using the BPL-090-30 CANOpen Amplifiers from Copley Controls and will continue to update this page as I make progress. In the meantime, here are a few renders of the design that I managed to dig up, prior to manufacturing this robot. If you're a robotics enthusiast in Portland, feel free to email me with a note about your background and we can potentially work on this together!
|
|
Student Years (2005 - 2010)
UAV Perch & StareMy Ph.D thesis investigated the concept of a biologically inspired leg-based landing system, drawing inspiration from bird legs, using self-tuning and adaptive impedance control.
|
Search & RescueA robotic mechanism, termed the sweep-extend mechanism, inspired by the European Mole was built as a means for mobile search and rescue robots to clear a path through loose debris.
|
