PC BASED SMALL ARM ROBOT

MUHAMMAD ZULHILMI BIN MANSOR

A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (Electronics)

Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Universiti Malaysia Pahang

NOVEMBER 2010

“I hereby acknowledge that the scope and quality of this thesis is qualified for the award

of the Bachelor Degree of Electrical Engineering (Electronics)”

Signature : ______________________________

Name : AIRUL SHARIZLI BIN ABDULLAH

Date : 26 NOVEMBER 2010

“All the trademark and copyrights use herein are property of their respective owner.

References of information from other sources are quoted accordingly; otherwise the

information presented in this report is solely work of the author.”

Signature : ____________________________

Author : MUHAMMAD ZULHILMI BIN MANSOR

Date : 26 NOVEMBER 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Alhamdulillah, first of all I would like to thanks a lot to Allah S.W.T for

blessing me with good health, physical and mental and time, also giving me patient and

spirit through this starting of my final year project. With mercifulness from Allah

S.W.T, therefore I can start to create a useful and brilliance idea to this project.

To my beloved parent, Mansor Bin Kembar and Ramisah Binti Awang, I am

grateful to have both of you in my life and giving support through this life. I am also

wanted to thank my supervisor, Mr. Airul Sharizli Bin Abdullah and Mr. Fairuz Reza

Bin Rashidi, the lecturer from the Faculty of Electric and Electronic that also as my

Academic Advisor, for his advice, comment and generous support. Thanks for your

guidance and without your guidance this project cannot be started and will not well

organized.

Not forget, to all my friends, especially to my Bachelor of Electrical

(Electronics) BEE, especially Mohd Amirul Aiman, Khairul, Khairul Anuar, Wan Mohd

Nur Hasif, Thanachelvan, and Muhammad Hafiz, who is part of my members of same

under supervisor that help me a lot in this making of this final project. May us all are

going through this final project together and success together.

I also would like to thank all parties that involved in my final project, whether

directly or indirectly in helping me to start this project and for their invaluable time,

guidance and advice. That support although small, but it means a lot to me in order to

make sure this project will be successful.

For the last, I will prepare my mind and body to face anything that coming in my

way to finish this project. Thank you very much and may Allah S.W.T bless all of you.

ABSTRACT

PC Based Small Arm Robot project is represented a small arm robot that controlled by Personal Computer (PC) using Graphical User Interface (GUI). The idea behind this project is able to enhance the student knowledge about industrial robot application. Basically, this project is focused on the designing the system include controlling elements. The project was involving mechanical part, hardware and software. These three elements are the main system of this project. A small arm robot is a mechanical part that represented the system output overall. Besides that, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) is developed by using Visual Basic software acted as the panel control through the personal computer (PC). The hardware element of the project is microcontroller circuit in order to manipulate and control the final system. As the additional information, a small arm robot has five degree of freedom (DOF) based on human’s arm. These all degree of freedoms is functioned as joint which is base, shoulder, elbow, wrist and end-effectors. The small arm robot is totally run by servo motors. For this project, the system is interfaced by using Atmel microcontroller. The Atmel microcontroller can manipulate the movement of small arm robot according to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) data signal. Data signal from personal computer (PC) triggered the function program code in microcontroller as the output signal that controls the servo motor rotational motions. Communication between personal computer (PC) and microcontroller circuit is connected by the serial communication integrated circuit (IC) that combined with microcontroller board.

ABSTRAK

PC Based Small Arm Robot merupakan sebuah projek mengaplikasikan robot lengan kecil yang dikawal oleh komputer (PC) dengan menggunakan Graphical User Interface (GUI). Matlamat sebenar projek ini adalah berupaya untuk membantu menambahkan pengetahuan pelajar tentang aplikasi robot industri. Projek ini pada asasnya memfokuskan tentang pembinaan sistem termasuklah elemen pengawalannya. Projek ini melibatkan pembinaan bahagian mekanikal, hardware dan software. Ketiga-tiga elemen ini merupakan sistem yang terpenting dalam projek ini. Robot lengan kecil ini merupakan bahagian mekanikal yang menggambarkan output keseluruhan sistem. Selain daripada itu, Graphical User Interface (GUI) dibangunkan dengan menggunakan perisian Visual Basic yang bertindak sebagai panel kawalan melalui komputer (PC). Elemen hardware dalam projek ini ialah litar microcontroller yang mana dapat memanipulasi dan mengawal keseluruhan sistem akhir. Sebagai maklumat tambahannya, robot lengan kecil ini mempunyai lima sudut kebebasan atau lebih di kenali dengan degree of freedom (DOF) yang berpandukan kepada lengan manusia. Kesemua sudut kebebasan ini (DOF) berfungsi sebagai sendi lengan manusia seperti bahu, siku, pergelangan tangan dan faktor terakhir. Robot lengan kecil ini keseluruhannya digerakkan dengan menggunakan servo motor. Sistem untuk projek ini diperantarakan dengan menggunakan Atmel microcontroller. Atmel microcontroller dapat memanipulasi pergerakan robot lengan kecil berdasarkan kepada isyarat data Graphical User Interface (GUI). Isyarat data daripada komputer (PC) mendetik fungsi kod program di dalam microcontroller sebagai isyarat keluaran yang dapat mengawal pergerakan pusingan servo motor. Komunikasi antara komputer (PC) dan litar microcontroller disambungkan dengan sebuah litar bersepadu komunikasi siri yang bergabung dengan litar microcontroller.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

SUPERVISOR’S DECLARATION ii

STUDENTS’S DECLARATION iii

DEDICATION iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi

ABSTRACT vi

ABSTRAK vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS viii LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiv

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Project 1

1.2 Project Objective 2

1.3 Problem Statement 2

1.4 Project Scope 2

1.5 Thesis Outline 3

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Robot Definition 4

2.2 Industrial Arm Robot 7

2.3 Literature Survey 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 11

3.2 Project Flow and Block Diagram 12

3.3 Priminilary Study 14

3.4 Mechanical Part Designing and Development

3.4.1 Small Arm Robot Designing 15

3.4.2 Robot Casing Designing 19

3.5 Hardware Designing and Development

3.5.1 Circuit Designing 21

3.5.2 Servo Motor Interface 28

3.6 Software Designing and Development

3.6.1 Microcontroller Software Designing and

Development 32

3.6.2 Graphical User Interface (GUI) Deigning and

Development 34

3.7 Testing Overall System

3.7.1 Basic Circuit 40

3.7.2 Microcontroller Port 41

3.7.3 Serial Communication Circuit 42

3.7.4 Servo Motor 44

3.7.5 Graphical User Interface (GUI) and

Microcontroller Software 45

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction 50

4.2 Result 50

4.3 Discussion 62

5 CONCLUSION

5.1 Conclusion 65

6 FUTURE RECOMMENDATION

6.1 Future Recommendation 66

REFFERENCES 68

APPENDIX A 69

APPENDIX B 71

APPENDIX C 73

APPENDIX D 79

APPENDIX E 84

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TITLLE PAGE

4.1 GUI Software 57

4.2 Microcontroller Software 58

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLLE PAGE

3.1 Flow Chart 12

3.2 Block Diagram 13

3.3 Small Arm Robot Sketch 15

3.4 Robot Parts 16

3.5 Links of Robot 16

3.6 Link Combination 17

3.7 Combination between Two Links 17

3.8 Gripper with Servo Motor 18

3.9 Base of Small Arm Robot 18

3.10 Acrylic Plastic Plate 19

3.11 Join with Silicon Glue 20

3.12 Schematic Circuit Diagram 21

3.13 Microcontroller AT89C51 22

3.14 Atmel AT89C51 Pin Configuration 23

3.15 Additional Function of P3 24

3.16 Voltage Regulator 25

3.17 A Quartz Crystal Oscillator 12 MHz 26

3.18 A RESET System Connection 26

3.19 The MAX233 Serial Communication Driver 27

3.20 Servo Motor ` 28

3.21 Servo Motor Gears Mechanism Assembly 29

3.22 The Angle Rotation of Servo Motor versus PWM signal 29

3.23 The Feedback Loop of Servo Motor Block Diagram 30

3.24 Servo Motor Wire Pin 31

3.25 Assembler Executable Form 32

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLLE PAGE

3.26 Compiler Executable Form 33

3.27 Visual Basic 2008 Start Page 35

3.28 Choosing on Windows Form Application 35

3.29 Form of Visual Basic 2008 36

3.30 GUI Design 37

3.31 HyperTerminal Com Port Setting 43

3.32 COM Properties Setting 43

3.33 GUI Testing Form 45

4.1 A Complete Mechanical Part 1 (Body) 51

4.2 A Complete Mechanical Part 2 (Body) 51

4.3 Small Arm Robot 52

4.4 Robot Casing Box 52

4.5 Complete Hardware Circuit 53

4.6 Result of PWM Period 54

4.7 Result of PWM Signal for Delay Period 54

4.8 Result on Serial Communication Circuit Testing 55

4.9 GUI Output Data via Button Tool 56

4.10 GUI Output Data via Combo Box Tool 57

4.11 Robot Casing Box 59

4.12 Switch, DB-9 port and Power Supply Division 59

4.13 PC Interfacing with Small Arm Robot System 60

4.14 A Complete GUI Form 61

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PC Personal Computer

GUI Graphical User Interface

VB Visual Basic

PWM Pulse Width Modulation

LED Light Emitting Diode

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF PROJECT

PC Based Small Arm Robot is described as a model for arm robot that controlled

by PC using Graphical User Interface (GUI) software. A robot has 4-axis and one end-

effector or manipulator that functions as joint to make movement like human’s arm that

each joint completed by servo motors. Data are sent through the Graphical User

Interface (GUI) that interfacing with personal computer (PC) to control the output, a

small arm robot. The end-effector for this small arm robot was gripper.

For this project, the overall system is controlled by using Atmel microcontroller.

The Atmel microcontroller function as controller where all the data that send by user

using GUI software will be process first before it can manipulate the servo motors to

run whatever condition, for example the degree of motor movements or angular motor

shaft position. Both programming code for GUI software and microcontroller are totally

different. The PC Based Small Arm Robot is the integrated project because the

combination of hardware, GUI software and microcontroller software.

1.2 PROJECT OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project is to;

i- Design and develop circuit for interfacing microcontroller

with five servo motor including one gripper.

ii- Design and develop Graphical User Interface (GUI) using

Visual Basic software.

iii- Develop small scale PC Based Small Arm Robot.

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT

The problem statements of this project are;

i- Small arm robot as model learning kit to create multiple

applications.

ii- More knowledge and skills in hardware designing.

iii- Reduce dependence on human work to save energy, cost

and time.

1.4 PROJECT SCOPE

The scope of this project is to;

i. Design and construct mechanical parts of robot. It is

consist of 4-axis joint and one gripper.

ii. Build microcontroller assembly programming. The

assembly programming is for servo motor movement.

iii. Build a visual basic interfacing assembly programming.

The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is design using this

software.

1.5 THESIS OUTLINE

This thesis contains 6 chapters and they are outlined as below:

Chapter 1 explains the introduction that includes concept of PC based system. It also

outlines objective and scope of this system.

Chapter 2 describes the revision about literature review and relationship with this

project development.

Chapter 3 provides description about methodology and discussion on the architecture

used and gives a brief review of microcontroller system board architecture.

Chapter 4 presents the result and discussion that conducted to each module. This chapter

includes the integrated system testing which all the modules are combined.

Chapter 5 summarizes the overall conclusion for this project.

Chapter 6 explains about features recommendation for this project.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 ROBOT DEFINITION

Generally, robot can be defined as a programmable device. It is the combination

of mechanical, electrical and electronic elements. Besides that, it is a machine that

functions in place of a living agent. Robots are especially desirable for certain work

functions because, unlike humans, they never get tired. For the examples, they can

endure physical conditions that are uncomfortable or even dangerous, they can operate

in airless conditions and they do not get bored by repetition. There will be save the

human energy and time.

There are many definitions of robots. It seems to be of difficulty to suggest an

accurate meaning for the word robot, that there are various definitions of this word,

different according to the points of view. Some view a robot through the aspect of

reprogramability while others more concern on the manipulation of the robot, behavior,

intelligence and so on.

The British Robot Association (BRA) defines robot as a programmable device

with a minimum of four degrees of freedom designed to both manipulate and transport

parts, tools or specialized manufacturing implements through variable programmed

motion for the performance of the specific manufacturing task.

While the Robotic Institute of America, on the other hand defines the robot as a

reprogrammable multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools or

specialized devices through variable programmed motion for the performance of a

variety of tasks.

Based on the definition of robot by the two institutes, it can be concluded that a

robot must be an automatic machine and be able to deal with the changing information

received from the environment.

2.1.1 Word History

The word robot comes from the Czech word robota (compare with the Russian

rabota for "to work") meaning "drudgery", "servitude", or "forced labor", especially the

so-called "labor rent" that survived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1848.

Isaac Asimov, coined the word robotics as the science of the study of robots, in

his science fiction stories about robot in 1940s.Where in Europe, robotics is define as

‘the science of robotology’ and robotology is defines as ‘the means by which robot

machines are put together and made to work’.

Many people think of robotics as a single area of technology, but in fact robotics

encompasses such diverse areas of technology as mechanical, electrical, electronics,

systems, computer, hardware and software and a host of other advanced technology.

2.1.2 The Distinction between Automation and Robotics

'Robots' is only a small sub-set of the technologies covered by the much broader

term Automation'. 'Automation' refers to a mode of operation in which any machine or

piece of equipment is capable of working without human intervention. Originally,

automation was limited in its potential, as automatic machines could only replace

physical effort and not mental effort.

Robots are just one example of flexible automation. Other examples in the

industrial sector are NC machine tools, automated assembly machines (including

automated component insertion machines), automated guided vehicles (AGV's)

automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS's), co-ordinate measuring machines

(CMM's) laser / plasma / water jet cutting machines etc.

The terms 'robot' and ‘robotics' both therefore originated in science fiction and

the original perception was one of human-like machines or androids. In popular culture,

and particularly in films, robots are often considered to have all the human attributes

with some capabilities considerably enhanced over that normally found in humans, but

in reality current technology is not yet able to match this vision.

2.2 INDUSTRIAL ARM ROBOT

An industrial robot is officially defined by International Standardization

Organization (ISO) as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose

manipulator programmable in three or more axes. The field of industrial robotics may

be more practically defined as the study, design and use of robot systems for

manufacturing.

Typical applications of industrial robots include welding, painting, ironing,

assembly, pick and place, palletizing, product inspection, and testing, all accomplished

with high endurance, speed, and precision. Manufacturers of industrial robots include

ABB (ASEA Brown-Boveri), Intelligent Actuator, Adept, Epson Robots, and Yaskawa-

Motoman.

ABB is a leading supplier of robots and automation for automotive,

manufacturing and the consumer goods industry. ABB produced its first robot in 1974.

At that time, the company's robots were mainly used for machine tending and material

handling. Nearly 30 years later, that market accounts for some 30 percent of robots sold

worldwide. According to the International Federation of Robotics, welding-spot and arc,

particularly in the automotive industry, is today's largest robot application.

2.3 LITERATURE SURVEY

From the review of some articles and journals, there is some knowledge that can

be related to the PC Based Small Arm Robot project. The overall thesis project mainly

focuses on how to control an arm robot. The first journal “Q-Robot A Multitasking PC

Based Robot Control System” written by N.Costescu, M.Loffler, E.Zergeroglu and

D.Dawson form Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson

University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA [1]. Based on this journal, PUMA robot is used as

arm robot.

The thesis of this paper used PUMA robot as the arm robot in order to complete

the purpose of the project. Actually, PUMA word is an abbreviation of Programmable

Universal Machine for Assembly. It is widely used in industry especially automobile

industry. A standard PUMA robot manipulator is controlled by a VAL-II based

Unimation Mark II controller. There are several disadvantages or limitations of the

VAL-II based Mark II controller system, many of which are attributable to the age of

the product. The proposed PC-based control system involves a hardware retrofit of the

Mark II controller, low level control software development, and high level application

program interface and trajectory generation software development. [1] This journal

applies the software to control the movement of arm robot.

The combination of the following three technical developments has made the

PC-based QRobot PUMA retrofit possible: i) the advent of high-speed, PC-based

microcomputer CPUs, ii) the availability of a hardware interface that can connect an

external controlling computer directly to the PUMA servo amplifiers and arm cable in

the existing Mark II controller, and iii) the availability of hard real time operating

systems for PCs (e.g., the QNX operating system). Specifically, the availability of

cheap, powerful PCs and efficient PC real-time operating systems make the

implementation of a PC-based robot control system possible; moreover, the TRC board

set for the Mark II controller makes a PC-based retrofit quite painless. [1]

Besides that, there are several data that can be related to the project from the

second journal written by Daniel G.Bihn and T.C Steve Hsia with thesis title about

“Universal Six-Joint Robot Controller” [2]. This project was to design and implement a

computer-based robotic controller that allows the researcher to write programs and

implement algorithms that control the robot arm from the lowest level of the closed-

loop servo system to the higher levels of kinematics, dynamics, path planning, and

robot language. The use of a familiar software environment was chosen with the intent

of making the user interface as clean and simple as possible. This paper presents the

design and implementation of the controller consisting of the Joint Interface Board (JIB)

electronics and the operating system interface to this hardware. A simple low-level six-

joint PID (proportional-integral-derivative) controller is implemented and presented to

serve as both a functional test of the system and as an application example. [2]

From the third journal of “Hardware and Software Co-design for Robot Arm

Position Control Using VHDL & FPGA”, authors by Mrs.Urmila Meshram, M.Tech.

VLSI Design Student, RKNEC, Nagpur, India, Mr.Pankaj Bande, Embedded System

Designer, LARE, Mumbai, India and Prof. R. R. Harkare, Asst. Prof. E&TC RKNEC,

Nagpur (MH), India [3] basically focuses on hardware and software interfacing for robot

arm controller application. The project of this paper is using FPGA chip in order to

control the arm robot. The purpose of this project is to design and build a control system

for position control for robot arm with an FPGA chip. This is closed loop control

system. In which Controller, Drive circuits and the Sensor circuit plays important role.

Plus Width Modulation (PWM) is used to control the speed of DC motor. The hardware

functional block is to be design in software module with the help of VHDL coding. [3]

For the hardware description, this paper used five-joint or five degree of

freedom (DOF) arm robot. The robot consists of an arm with Five degrees of freedom

(DOF). Entire system bounded by hardware and software co-design. This signal is

provided from the FPGA through the drive components. With each movement the motor

makes, a Rotary encoder reads the position off of a disk attached to the motor. [3] There

is the difference to the PC Based Small Arm Robot project as known that it applied

four-joint of movements.

The fourth journal is “Development of A Microcontroller Based Robotic Arm”

that written by Jegede Olawale, Awodele Oludele, Ajayi Ayodele, and Ndong Miko

Alenjadro from Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Nigeria [4]. This journal explained

how to interfacing robotic arm with the programmed 8051 microcontroller by using

stepper motor in order to control the robot operations. According to their block diagram,

the project of microcontroller based robotic arm is included with input controlling. This

journal used keypad and magnetic sensors as inputs or their interfacing. Based on this

journal also, it also provides more interfaces to the outsides and has expanded memory

to store many programs. The development of 8051 microcontroller based robotic arm is

used the assembly programming in order to develop the program for EPROM 2732 that

take the robot’s output signal as input and output and lastly controls the robot

programmatically.

Based on the journals and articles review, the concept of the project is

approximately same as the PC Based Small Arm Robot project. Compare to the PC

Based Small Arm Robot project, there are some differences about controller unit that

used in order to control the arm robot. For this project, the Atmel microcontroller will

be used to control and process the system compare to the third journal that FPGA is

used for controller unit.

Besides that, this project uses the servo motor as the robot actuator. This is very

different robot’s output application. As a comparison, the fourth journal used the stepper

motor in order to make the robot operation. This journal also applied the expanded

memory such as EEPROM in order to save more programs meanwhile this PC Based

Small Arm Robot only used the built in memory in ATMEL microcontroller.

The four reviewed journals exactly not used the Graphical User Interface (GUI)

as the interfacing, there are mainly focused on controlling the arm robot using the

controller unit and collect the data analysis. So, this is additional elements for the PC

Based Small Arm Robot to implement the (GUI) software application.

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Basically, this PC Based Small Arm robot project contained three main

elements. There are mechanical parts, hardware and software development. To ensure

the project is running rise smoothly without any problems, this project was carried out

by according to the Gantt chart that can be referred in Appendix A.

Based on the Gantt chart planning, this project should be completed within

twenty-two weeks. Priminilary study on all three elements must be implemented during

this project such as study on microcontroller, servo motor, PC interfacing and Graphical

User Interface (GUI).

Besides that, in the Gantt chart planning has also divided into some task. There

are mechanical parts designing, basic microcontroller circuit developing, servo motor

and microcontroller interfacing, serial communication ports interfacing, Graphical User

Interface (GUI) designing and overall project testing.

So, the project can be completed with the perfect one by following the Gantt

chart without postpone it even a week.