Planet Arduino

We all know how annoying a ceiling fan can be when it isn’t balanced well and that annoyance perfectly demonstrates the necessity of a good, sturdy bearing. A ceiling fan’s bearing needs to allow for smooth rotational motion with as little friction as possible, while completely constraining movement in every other axis. Those properties make a ceiling base a surprisingly good starting point for a SCARA, as demonstrated in tuenhidiy’s recent Instructables write-up.

In their tutorial, tuenhidiy refers to this as a “Spaceship Scara Arm.” It isn’t exactly clear why they chose the “spaceship” terminology, but it is similar to a conventional SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm) — just one with only two degrees of freedom (DOF).

The entire point of a SCARA is that it is fully constrained, except for rotation around the Z axis at each joint. After their ceiling fan broke, tuenhidiy noticed that the fan’s base with its beefy bearing would be perfect for this application. They took that, added a couple of stepper motors and belts, some aluminum extrusion, and a couple more bearings to create this simple SCARA.

An Arduino UNO Rev3 board controls those motors through a CNC Shield V3. Grbl firmware makes it easy to control the positions of the motors using just about any software a user could possibly want. Some simple calculations regarding the arm’s geometry and gear ratios should let appropriate software determine exactly where it is in space. For a demonstration, tuenhidiy added a DC solenoid for its magnetic capabilities. But anyone replicating this project can add their own end effector to suit their needs.

The post Ceiling fan becomes a “spaceship” SCARA robot arm appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Static manipulators and mobile robot chassis each have their own advantages, and so by combining the two into a single platform, AadhunikLabs was able to realize both at the same time. The base frame is comprised of four individual wheels, each with their own high-torque geared motor and driven by a pair of VNH3ASP30 DC motor driver boards. All of the arm’s axes are moved via a single high-torque metal servo motor that not only can support its own weight, but also the weight of an object being picked up by the gripper on the end.

Beyond controlling the geared DC and servo motors, an onboard Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect receives commands over Wi-Fi® from a host PC running the control software. In here, the user can view a live camera feed coming from an ESP32 camera module as well as virtually view the robotic arm’s position in 3D space. Similar to a video game, pressing keyboard keys such as ‘WASD’ and sliding the mouse provide general movements for the chassis and arm, respectively. Meanwhile, other keys allow for manipulating the end-effector, moving the arm to default positions, and adjusting the speed.

To see this project in more detail, you can check out AadhunikLabs’ write-up on the Arduino Project Hub and watch its demo video below.

The post This remote-controlled, highly mobile robot features a 4DOF arm and an onboard camera appeared first on Arduino Blog.

There are many ways to control a robot arm, with the simplest being a sequential list of rotation commands for the motors. But that method is very inefficient when the robot needs to do anything complex in the real world. A more streamlined technique lets the user move the arm as necessary, which sets a “recording” of the movements that the robot can then repeat. We tend to see that in high-end robots, but Mr Innovative built a robot arm with recording capability using very affordable materials.

This uses an input controller that is roughly the same size and shape as the robot arm, so Mr Innovative can manipulate that controller and the arm will mimic the movements like a puppet. The robot arm will also record those movements so it can repeat them later without any direct oversight. The video shows this in action with a demonstration in which the robot picks up small cylindrical objects and places them at the top of chute, where they slide back down for the process to continue indefinitely.

An Arduino Nano board powers the servo motors through a custom driver board to actuate the robot arm. It takes input from the controller, which has rotary potentiometers in the joints where the robot arm has servo motors. Therefore, the values from the potentiometers match the desired angles of the servo motors. The custom driver board has two buttons: one to activate the gripper and one to record to movements. When Mr Innovative holds down the second button, the Arduino will store all the movement commands so that it can repeat them.  

The post This cheap robot arm can follow recorded movements appeared first on Arduino Blog.

If you want a robot arm, either for some practical job or just fun, you have a lot of options. There are many consumer and industrial robot arms on the market, but the models that aren’t glorified toys tend to be pricey. You can also build your own. If you go that route, you’ll want a design that is well-engineered and well-documented. It isn’t free, but the ARCTOS robot arm is a high-quality option that meets both of those criteria.

Based on aesthetics alone, the ARCTOS robot arm looks fantastic. It resembles something you’d see in a lab in a sci-fi movie. But it also offers more than a pretty package. It has six degrees of freedom and a payload of 500 grams, making it suitable for tasks ranging from pick-and-place to packing boxes. Best of all, you can assemble it using easily sourced hardware and 3D-printed parts. Those parts are PLA and just about any modern 3D printer can handle the fabrication.

The ARCTOS design files will set you back €39.95 (about $44) and sourcing all of the parts for the build will cost around $400. Stepper motors actuate the joints, through simple belt drives and cycloidal gear boxes. An Arduino Mega 2560 controls those through a standard CNC shield. It runs open source firmware based on GRBL that will work with a variety of control software options to suit different tasks.

The post Build your own high-quality ARCTOS robot arm appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Getting started in the world of robotics can be a very challenging task, even for more experienced hobbyists, due to how difficult it can be to achieve smooth and precise motion through programming. Frustrated by the lack of accessible options, the YouTuber known as “Build Some Stuff” decided to not only design his own, but to do it using as few prefabricated parts as possible and while keeping the total cost under $60.

The premise of the arm project was to utilize a total of five servo motors for manipulating each degree of freedom, as well as an Arduino Leonardo and a PCA9685 driver for controlling them. Once the components had been selected, Build Some Stuff then moved onto the next step of creating 3D models of each of the robot arm’s joints in Fusion 360 before 3D printing them. He also made a scaled-down version of the larger arm assembly and replaced the servo motors with potentiometers, therefore allowing him to translate the model’s position into degrees for the motors.

Although simple, the code running on the Leonardo was still responsive enough to move the servos in nearly perfect synchronization compared to the model. To see more about how Build Some Stuff was able to make this robotic system from scratch and some of the problems he ran into, watch the video below!

The post An Arduino Leonardo-powered, 3D-printed robotic arm designed from scratch appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Building a capable robot is only half of the battle. To take advantage of that robot, you’ll need a good way to control it. When it makes sense, you can pre-program movements. But when you want to control a robot in real time, you need suitable controller. Conventional joysticks and gamepads don’t translate well to robot arm movement, which is why Jelle Vermandere built a miniature robot arm to control a larger robot arm.

Vermandere built the larger robot arm in the past, but found that traditional control methods have several shortcomings. His solution was to build a small replica of that robot arm. He can manipulate the small robot arm by hand, and the large robot arm will mirror the movement. This digital puppetry works well, because Vermandere can direct each joint in a fluid and natural manner. This isn’t a new technique, but Vermandere does a great job of explaining how it works and how you might be able to achieve similar results.

The smaller robot arm has the same design as the larger. That means that any rotation of the smaller robot’s joints will translate to the larger; if the small robot’s elbow joint rotates 45 degrees, then so should the larger robot’s. That smaller robot has servo motors in each joint, which contain potentiometers for position feedback. An Arduino Nano 33 BLE board looks at that feedback data to determine the angle of each joint. It then passes that to the computer that controls the larger robot, which sets the larger robot’s joint angles to match.

An additional benefit of this setup is that the smaller robot can still work like a robot. It has servo motors in the joints, which the Arduino can control. So Vermandere can utilize the smaller robot for other tasks.

The post Micro robot arm controls macro robot arm appeared first on Arduino Blog.

To give an electric car more range, you need a bigger battery pack. But that adds weight, so you need bigger motors and more battery capacity to compensate. This creates a vicious cycle and robot arms are susceptible to a similar problem. A robot arm needs to lift its own weight in addition to whatever it picks up. Bigger motors to increase the payload capacity also increase weight, thereby decreasing the payload capacity. This video from RoTechnic describes how to sidestep that cycle with remote motors.

RoTechnic’s robot arm has six degrees of freedom (DoF): a rotating base, a shoulder joint, an elbow joint, a rotating wrist joint, a tilting wrist joint, and a rotating end effector. If the robot were a conventional design, all of those joints (except the first two) would require a motor that adds levered weight to lift. The weight of those motors would subtract from the amount that the arm could otherwise lift. But three of this robot’s motors sit on the table nearby so that it doesn’t need to lift them.

RoTechnic used an Arduino Mega 2560 board to control those motors. Most of the robot’s other parts were 3D-printed. Some of the motors, like for base rotation and the shoulder joint, remain in the conventional location. But three of the motors actuate their joints via fishing lines fed through Bowden tubes. The motors have spools and when those rotate they loosen one line while tightening the other. Each joint has a similar spool, so the fishing lines turn them. The only limitation is that a joint can’t rotate indefinitely, but one can mitigate that by looping the fishing line around each spool many times to provide an equivalent number of revolutions.

This technique has been in use in the robotics industry for longer than computer control and isn’t groundbreaking. But RoTechnic’s build demonstrates how easy it is for hobbyists to integrate the technique into their robot designs. 

The post Increase a robot arm’s payload capacity by relocating its wrist motors appeared first on Arduino Blog.

As a maker, you probably have a third hand for your soldering station. They come in handy when you need to hold a component, PCB, solder, and soldering iron all at the same time. But an extra hand would be useful for a wide range of other everyday activities. That’s why this team of researchers created a compact robotic third arm called AugLimb.

While robotic augmentations aren’t a new idea, they aren’t often as usable as AugLimb. This robotic arm is lightweight and compact, making it comfortable to wear. It can’t lift much weight, but it is very dexterous thanks to seven degrees of freedom and an extendable gripper. It attaches to the wearer’s bicep and folds up when not in use. When it is time for action, AugLimb unfolds and reaches further than the user’s own arm.

An Arduino Mega board drives AugLimb’s various motors. Those include two shoulder servos, an elbow servo, two wrist servos, a scissor extension motor, and two gripper servos. The scissor extension increases reach by up to 250mm. At this time, a second human operator has to control AugLimb’s movement. But the team hopes to introduce control schemes that let the user operate the robotic limb on their own.

AugLimb is a prototype, but Haoran Xie, a member of the team behind the project, said “We believe that AugLimb will be as popular as smart watches in the near future, as anyone from an elder to a child can comfortably wear it for the whole day.”

Image: Haoran Xie / Zeyu Ding

The post AugLimb is the extra arm you didn’t know you needed appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Ever wanted your own gesture-controlled robot arm? [EbenKouao]’s DIY Arduino Robot Arm project covers all the bases involved, but even if a robot arm isn’t your jam, his project has plenty to learn from. Every part is carefully explained, complete with source code and a list of required hardware. This approach to documenting a project is great because it not only makes it easy to replicate the results, but it makes it simple to remix, modify, and reuse separate pieces as a reference for other work.

[EbenKouao] uses a 3D-printable robotic gripper, base, and arm design as the foundation of his build. Hobby servos and a single NEMA 17 stepper take care of the moving, and the wiring and motor driving is all carefully explained. Gesture control is done by wearing an articulated glove upon which is mounted flex sensors and MPU6050 accelerometers. These sensors detect the wearer’s movements and turn them into motion commands, which in turn get sent wirelessly from the glove to the robotic arm with HC-05 Bluetooth modules. We really dig [EbenKouao]’s idea of mounting the glove sensors to this slick 3D-printed articulated gauntlet frame, but using a regular glove would work, too. The latest version of the Arduino code can be found on the project’s GitHub repository.

Most of the parts can be 3D printed, how every part works together is carefully explained, and all of the hardware is easily sourced online, making this a very accessible project. Check out the full tutorial video and demonstration, embedded below.

3D printing has been a boon for many projects, especially those involving robotic arms. All kinds of robotic arm projects benefit from the advantages of 3D printing, from designs that focus on utility and function, to clever mechanical designs that reduce part count in unexpected ways.

Would you like your own industrial robot arm, but don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to spend? You could instead build Giovanni Lerda’s KAUDA, a five-axis device that uses under 800g of PLA, an Arduino Mega, and other off-the-shelf parts.

KAUDA utilizes servos to actuate the two wrist joints, along with a NEMA 17 motor for the elbow. A single stepper rotates the base in the horizontal direction, while dual steppers provide lifting force at this joint.

The gripper is a three-fingered linkage assembly, controlled by a small DC motor. The arm’s construction is outlined on its official website, and instructions can be found in Lerda’s write-up here. As seen in the video below, KAUDA looks great and appears to work quite well!