A lab view-based on-line robotic arm for students' laboratory

Abstract

In this paper, the development of robotic arm experiments using the i-Lab Interactive Architecture is presented. Communication with the arm is done by using the RS-232 protocol. The robotic arm used in the laboratory has five degrees of freedom, each degree of freedom being controlled by a servomotor. The servomotors are controlled via pulse-width modulation (PWM), the width of each pulse being indicative of the position to which motor should move. Three experiments are considered. The first experiment simply makes the robotic arm available to the student for direct control by moving different sliders. Each slider controls a motor. This would be the preliminary task to students who are new to robotics, and would familiarise them with the workings of the robotic arm. The second experiment demonstrates the effect of gravity on a robotic arm at different data rates. The third experiment developed entails requiring students to program the positions of each of the motors for each sequence stage of robot movements. Students would draw up this movement to perform an instructor-determined task. The instructor would require the students to, for example, pick an object from one location and place the object in another location. The RA-01 robotic arm made by Images SI Inc. is used for these experiments and LabVIEW is used to create the laboratory clients and experiment engines. A visual feedback from the lab to the client is provided via a webcam. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.