Animatronic Robotic arm with haptic feedback

Abstract:

This project deals with the design and development of a robotic arm with fingers having all
features like a normal human and can do all operation that the human hand can do. It has 5
fingers and works just like human arm. Robotic arm is made of by using Haptic Technology.
‘Haptic’ is a technology that adds the sense of touch to virtual environments or mechanical
models. A haptic device gives people a sense of touch with computer-generated or real
environments, so that when objects are touched, they seem real and tangible. The project
involves interfacing haptic flex sensors with AVR microcontroller with arduino firmware which
can be used to track every movement of fingers. The user wears a gloves which are fitted with the
above tactile sensors. Usually this sensor gives analog output, if there is a change in their
resistance value. This analog output is manipulated in such a way that they give proportional
pulses of different duty cycles to the servo motors which give movement to the robotic arm.

Keywords: Haptics system, AVR, Servos etc.

Introduction:

Robotics is a special engineering science which deals with designing, modeling, controlling and
robots' utilization. Now a days robots accompany people in everyday life and take over their
daily routine procedures. As the research progressed, robots were recognized not only as simple
action performer but as a machine that have diverse and variety of purposes and usages.

In practice, a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by means of

computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or
remotely controlled . Robots are used within an increasingly wide variety of tasks such as for
household appliances like vacuuming floors, mowing lawns, cleaning drains, building cars, in
warfare, and in tasks that are too expensive or too dangerous to be performed through humans
such as exploring outer space or at the bottom of the sea.

In the implementation process, the software consists of the commands that control a robot's
actions and provide information regarding required tasks. When a program is written by means
of software, the robot is able to implement commands and achieve the particular errands.
Programming robots can be a intricate and difficult process, and while it has become easier over
the years, the lack of cross-platform industry principles has affected the development of software
tools for robots compared to other automated control systems such as programmable logic
controllers.
According to the Robot Institute of America, “A robot is a reprogrammable, multifunctional
manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable
programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks”. The robots have to interact with
their environment, which is an important objective in the development of robots.
But these robots keep on carrying out repetitive tasks, which they are programmed for. They
operate in controlled environments and perform highly repetitive tasks under pre-programmed
control. Thus there is need to implement some other technology which provides flexibility in
control using human machine interaction.
This can be achieved using haptic feedback systems. This project deals with design and
fabrication of robotic arm which can simulate human motion using the flex sensors mounted on
the haptic glove.

Haptical Technology or haptics is tacticle feedbacks that take advantage of user sense of touch
by applying forces,
vibration and motion to the user. Haptics refers to sensing and manipulation through touch. The
word Haptic is derived from the Greek word “haptesthai” [1]. Haptic Technology promises to
have wide reaching applications as it already has in some fields. For example, haptic technology
has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works by allowing the
creation of carefully controlled haptic virtual objects.Haptics
technology can be used to train people for tasks requiring hand-eye coordination, such as surgery
and space ship maneuvers.
Through haptic interface, human can interact with the computer through body sensation and
movement. Several applications such as surgical training, gaming etc use haptic technology.
Haptic technology has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch
works by allowing the creation of carefully controlled
haptic virtual objects.
Literature review:
Haptic interfaces are divided into two main categories:
1) Force feedback
2) Tactile feedback
Force feedback interfaces are used to explore and modify remote/virtual objects in three physical
dimensions in
applications including computer-aided design, computer assisted surgery, and computer-aided
assembly. Tactile feedback interfaces deals with surface properties such as roughness,
smoothness and temperature.
Basically haptic system consists of two parts:
 Human part
 Machine part
The human part and machine part work in coordination. Also both the systems will be provided
with necessary sensors, processors and actuators. In the case of the human system, nerve
receptors performs sensing, brain performs processing and muscles performs actuation of the
motion performed by the hand while in case of the machine
system, the above mentioned functions are performed by the encoders, computer and motors
respectively.
Objective:
The main objective of this project is to design and develop a smart robotic arm which can be
replicate the motion of human arm using the sensors mounted on the users arm.
The objective also includes adding sense of touch to the arm thus making it driven using haptic
technology.
Research methodology:
This project involves design and development of smart haptic robotic arm. The robotic arm
receives signals from the wearable glove which is mounted on the hand of user and simulates the
movement of the user’s hand using s robotic arm. The entire system consists of sensors mounted
on the user’s glove. The glove is designed in such a way that every finger of the glove is
mounted with a flex sensor. The sensors are interfaced with microcontroller. The microcontroller
used here is AVR microcontroller. The microcontroller reads the data from the flex sensor which
are mounted on the haptic glove and observes for every minute change in sensor data. The data
form the sensors are fed into microcontroller. The microcontroller is programmed in such a way
that it reads the data from the sensors on haptic glove and then creates an appropriate control
signal to control the robotic arm. The robotic arm consists of servo motors which permit accurate
precision for control. Based on the control signal from microcontroller the robotic arm responds
to the changes in every finger movement of the arm and thus replicates the motion of the human
arm.
 The figure below shows the simple block diagram of working of haptic robotic arm.

The robotic arm with haptic feedback

system

Haptic glove
which consists of Microcontroller
flex sensors
With arduino firmware
mounted to track
finger movement
Implementation:
The implementauion of this project mainly requires development of the harware using sensors
micrcontroller and Robotic arm and then programming it to achieve the desired result. For the
sake of simplicity we will divide the entire implementation of the project into different modules .
1) The haptic glove
2) The microcontroller unit
3) The robotic arm with haptic feedback

1) The haptic glove:

The haptic glove consits of a glove with flx sensors mounted on it. The gloves is
wearable and the output of the flex sensors are connected to the mocrocontroller. When
the user wars the glove and make some movement of the fingers, the flex sensors record
the movement of each finger and the data is sent to the input of microcontroller.
2) The microcontroller:
The microcontroller is the heart of the project and is responsible for doing the entire
processing. It revieves the signals corresponcdong to the arm movement from the haptic
glove and sent controlling signals to robotic arm. It inturn recieves the haptic feedback
from the robotic arm.
3) The robotic arm with haptic feedback:
The robotic arm with haptic feedback consists of a servo controlled arm designed in such
a way that it resembles the replica of human arm. The control signal form the
microcontroller is fed to robotic arm which then replicats the motoin of the user based on
the signal received form the microcontroller.

Hardware Used:
The hardware components used in the project are as given below.
1) AVR atmega 328 p microcontroller
2) The flex sensors to measure the finger gestures.
3) Servo motors.
4) Mechancal assembly
 Software used:
The software used in this project is the arduino IDE to write the program, compile and
burn into the board.
Advantages:
1) It creates a special type of communication which would be focused upon touch and it
takes advantage of the user’s sense of touch and feeling.
2) Haptic technology is an intuitive way for a human user to interact with a computer or
other haptic device, and have that device display information back into the real world.
3) Can be used in small and compact forms
4) Working time is reduced.

Disadvantages:
1) Precision touch and feedback requires lot if complex design
2) Need the use of specalized hardware

Applications:

1) Tele assisted surgery

2) To lift heavier objects
3) To lift nuclear wastes without harming the humans
4) Used as external limbs of a surgeon during a complex retinal or heart surgeries
5) Prototype for a Bomb disposal robot
.References:

1) Operative Precept of robotic arm expending Haptic Virtual System by Arnab Das,
Swagat Kumar Samantaray, Anil Kumar Patra3
2) Haptic Robotic Arm Using Voice & GestureRecognition by Aishwarya Patil, Anilkumar
Daharwal, Ankur Harshe, Mohnish Gakare, Monika Sajjanwar
3) HAPTIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY by S. Sri Gurudatta Yadav,Dr.R.V.Krishnaiah
4) Design And Implementation Of A Robotic Arm Based On Haptic Technology by A. Rama
Krishna, G. Sowmya Bala, A.S.C.S. Sastry,B. Bhanu Prakash Sarma,Gokul Sai Alla
5) Haptic Technology - A Sense of Touch by B. Divya Jyothi1, R. V. Krishnaiah