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Worker's Assistant Robot using myRIO and LabVIEW

Conference Paper · April 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICOEI.2019.8862787

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 Worker‟s Assistant Robot using myRIO and
LabVIEW
Dr. D.Y. Sakhare Diksha Kaushik
Aditya Mali
Associate Professor School of Electrical Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering Dept. Electronics Engineering
Dept. Electronics Engineering
Dept. Electronics Engineering MIT Academy of Engineering, Alandi.
MIT Academy of Engineering, Alandi.
MIT Academy of Engineering, Alandi. Pune, India.
Pune, India.
Pune, India. dikmit15@gmail.com
adityamali716@gmail.com
dysakhare@etx.maepune.ac.in

Gunjan Chaudhari
School of Electrical Engineering
Dept. Electronics Engineering
MIT Academy of Engineering, Alandi.
Pune, India.
gunjan.chaudhari85@gmail.com

Abstract—Industries are dependent on the efficiency,
accuracy, and speed of the worker on the production line which
may sometimes lead to a human error in the final product. The
desired output of the product can be achieved by the cooperation
between the robot and the operator. In this paper, we have
designed and implemented a robot that will assist workers in the
industries, helping them in improving various factors such as
speed, accuracy, and efficiency on the production line by
performing repetitive and tedious tasks. This robot consists of a
3-axis arm on mobile chassis with Omni-directional wheels
controlled by using NI myRIO and programmed with LabVIEW.
Thus, the worker’s assistant robot can be conceptualized as an
intelligent helper in the industrial environment for assembling,
handling, fetching and carrying jobs, etc.
Keywords— 3-axis Arm, Mobile Chassis, 4 myRIO, LabVIEW.
I. INTRODUCTION
Technical advancements in the field of manufacturing
industries have helped us come a long way. Many industries
have switched from traditional machines to intelligent robots
that can do the same task with more precision and reducing
the process time. Automation has indeed revolutionized the
production process and has made work much easier. Some of
the industries have completely automated the production
process by replacing manual labor work with intelligent
robots.
While many industries are in their developing stage,
there are several other industries that are still following
conventional methods or have immense scope for improving
their autonomous systems, like the existing robots in such
industries have certain drawbacks such as the bulky size and
mobility. As of now, there are robots used in the industry for
major tasks which have reduced labor work. There are some
minor tasks that have to be done by the workers only.
"Robotics" generally refers to the application of robot
manipulators to a process such as drilling, welding, painting,
material-handling [1]. Workers assistant robots represent
industrial robots which are characterized by their
advancement in interaction and ability to adapt natural
environments both at homes and shop floors [2]. Small lot
sizes, unpredictable production timelines, and volumes and
increasing cost pressure are raising the area of conflict
between flexibility and automation. A possible solution to
this problem is the application of robot assistants. Robot
assistance supports manual workplaces that are the most
flexible work systems, by the division of labor between robot
and worker. [3]. A safe and flexible co-operation between
robot and operator may be a promising way to achieve better
productivity at the manual workplace [4]. Currently, some of
the tasks are solely dependent on the manual workforce.
These tasks have time constraints and require adequate
accuracy. The workers have to do that same repetitive and
tedious task with time constraints and accuracy. This results
in a human error and hampers the precision and quality of the
final product. Collaborative robots are intended for direct
interaction with a human worker, handling a shared payload
[5].
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
To design and build a robot that can be used in
manufacturing industries to assist workers in basic and
repetitive mechanical tasks on the assembly production
line. A robot with 3 axis arm will assist workers to perform
certain repetitive and tedious tasks.
III. OBJECTIVES
The following are the objectives that are achieved in
this proposed idea.
 To design a 3 axis robotic arm with 2 degrees of
freedom.
 To implement an Omni-directional robot.
 To perform repetitive tasks.
 To avoid the obstacle in the path.
IV. METHODOLOGY
Modules connected in the system achieve the desired
process efficiently such that all the requirements are
fulfilled. We have implemented the following methods to
execute the proposed idea which includes flowcharts, and
block diagrams.
 `
The Flow chart in figure 2 shows the manual working of
motors for Omni wheels. Different keys are assigned to the
movement of the robot. The program receives the pressed key
and then stores it in an array. This pressed key is then
checked if it matches with the STOP condition. If the
condition STOP = 0 becomes TRUE program reads new
variables from the user and according to the key pressed
functions will be triggered as shown in figure 2. The same
algorithm will be used for the servo motors movement.

Fig. 1. System Block Diagram

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of all the hardware

components used for the robot, the core component in the
project is the NI myRio Microcontroller used for carrying out
the whole process.NI myRio consists of a Xilinx FPGA chip
and a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor [6]. The Robot is
powered by using a 12V power supply. This supply is given
to the myRio Microcontroller and the motor driver through a
DC-DC Converter. As the components work on various
voltages, a DC-DC converter is used to generate voltage
levels of 5V, 9V, and 12V supply.
The motor drivers are used to achieve adequate current
rating for the motors as signals from microcontroller alone 
are insufficient to run the motors. The MD2 is a next- Fig. 3. Flowchart of 3 Axis Arm working (Autonomous).
generation high-performance motor controller driver and The Flowchart in figure 3 explains the autonomous
sensor adapter [7]. The 3 Axis arm movement is controlled working of a 3-axis arm. This is done by accessing the
by using the servomotors. A DC motor is placed on the 3 axis elements of the array where key pressed is stored when the
arm which will be actually used for the task. For the chassis robot was in manual mode is stored
mobility, 4 DC motors are used which are connected to First, the program will be accessed from the stored array.
Omnidirectional wheels. To avoid obstacles in the path of the This variable is then read and checked with the STOP key. If
robot, a sharp sensor is used to detect obstacles which can the STOP = 0 i.e. if the stop key is not pressed the condition
avoid any uncalled collisions, Sharp sensors work on the becomes TRUE and the program reads the next variables
principle of IR sensor (infrared). from a stored array and accordingly the arm movement takes
They consist of transmitters and receivers. The sharp place as shown in figure 3.
sensor is used as an input to the microcontroller. This whole
process is programmed and controlled using a computer
system.

Fig. 4. Hardware setup of the complete robot with Omni direction

chassis and 3 axis arm.

Figure 4 shows the mounting of a 3-axis arm on the

chassis with the other hardware components attached to the
NI myRio Microcontroller. There is an extra storage space
allocated for easy transportation of the material within the
industry.

Fig. 2. Flowchart of working of DC Motors (Manual).

 `
V. RESULTS B. Repetitive Working of Arm
In this paper, we have obtained the following results
while designing the robot. This section will also include the
results and performance of the evaluation of the system.
A. Implementation of 3 Axis Arm.

Drill DC
motor
Level 3
Servo

Fig. 7(a). Initial Fig. 7(b). updated Fig. 7(c). updated

position. position 1. position 2.

Level 2 Servo
Figure 7 the working of 3 axis arm is shown this is done by
Base providing stored values from the global array when the robot
Servo was in the manual mode. Figure 7(a) shows the initial position
and then changes the position according to the stored array
values. As shown the figure 7(b) and 7(c). This process goes
Fig. 5. The 3 Axis arm consists of 3 servo motor and 1 DC motor with on for „n‟ number of iterations which is provided by the user.
2 degrees of freedom. Table 1. Servo motor positions in manual mode.
Figure 5 shows the actual image of the arm consisting of
2 links with the 3 servomotors attached to it. The drill motor Sr no. Servo 1 angle Servo 2 angle Servo 3 angle
is attached at the end which completes the whole (in degree) (in degree) (in degree)
mechanism of the 3 axis arm. All the servomotors range 1. 0 90 0
from 0 to 180 degrees. The movement arrow shows 2 2. 90 82 0
degrees of freedom. Rotary joints allow a full range of
3. 0 0 73
motion, as they rotate through multiple planes, and they
Final value 90 82 73
increase the capabilities of the robot considerably [8]. The
stored in
robotic ARM is built with the number of servomotors that
perform ARM movements concurrently. The controlling array
action of robotic ARM is managed through graphical
programming language G, LabVIEW [9]. Robot arm was Table 1 shows the values provided by the user at every
controlled manually through the LabVIEW GUI(Graphical stage for each servo. The final values are stored in an array
User Interface) controls [10]. for using in autonomous mode.

Table 2. Servo motor positions in autonomous mode.

Sr Servo 1 angle Servo 2 angle Servo 3 angle

no. (in degree) (in degree) (in degree)
1. 90 82 73
2. 90 82 73

Table 2 shows the values at which arm servomotors are

rotated at the end of every iteration. After the 1st and 2nd
iteration arm is perfectly rotated at the angles which were
stored in an array while the manual operation was carried out.

Fig. 6 LabVIEW Code for 3 axes Arm (Autonomous).

The code in figure 6 shows the autonomous working of

the 3-axis arm using servomotors which are controlled by
varying the PWM. The stored values in the global array
which contain the PWM values are given as the input.
 `
C. Omni Directional Movement D. Power consumption

80
70
60 Omni
50
40
30 Normal
20 Chassis
10
0

Fig. 10. Graph of power consumption per direction.

Fig. 8. Omnidirectional Chassis
Figure 10 shows the graph of power consumed for each
Figure 8 shows the robot chassis with Omnidirectional direction. The power required for 1 motor is 17W. Hence,
wheels. These wheels provide motion in two directions for movement in one direction 34W are consumed as only 2
without the need of turning robot and require only two motors are working. But, in the case of normal Chassis 68W
motors at a time to move in one direction. The power are consumed.
consumption is reduced to half as only two motors work at a
E. Obstacle Avoidance
time when moving in a direction. Omni-directional robots
are becoming a much-sought solution to mobile robotic
applications. These kinds of holonomic robots are
interesting because they allow greater maneuverability and
efficiency at the expense of some extra complexity [11].

Fig. 11(a). shows the robot is far from the obstacle

Fig. 9. Omni directional wheels chassis versus normal wheels chassis.

Figure 9 shows the comparison of Omnidirectional

wheels chassis with normal wheels chassis where for
movement in one direction Omni wheels require only 2 wheel
and normal wheels requires 4 wheels. DC motors are widely
used in industrial applications, robotics, and domestic
appliances because of its low cost and less complex control
Fig. 11(b). The Robot detects obstacle and LEDs on the myRIO starts
structure and a wide range of speed and torque [12]. glowing

Figure 11 shows the sharp sensor‟s working for obstacle

detection. In this when the obstacle is detected the LED‟s on
the NI myRio glow. As soon as the robot detects the obstacle
it stops moving and turns on the LEDs for indication of
obstacle detection.
 `
VI. CONCLUSION
In this proposed idea, we have successfully designed and
implemented a robot consisting of a 3 Axis arm with
Omnidirectional mobility and can be guided to perform a user
assigned basic repetitive mechanical tasks such as drilling.
The robot can also avoid obstacles in its path using a sharp
sensor which will help the robot to work safely in the
industrial environment. This idea can have a future scope
which includes implementation of multifunctional heads
which can be attached and detached in order to increase the
efficiency. Furthermore, image processing can be used for
improving accuracy and to locate hardware parts precisely.
Better accessibility can be achieved by increasing the number
of the axis of the arm. Swarm robotics can be implemented to
improve coordination between two or more devices. Lastly,
the robot can be made more intelligent, steady and reliable by
using IoT technology.
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