Robotic Arms

By bOtskOOl - Posted on 24 February 2009

The manipulators are an assembly of segments and joints. They are often referred to as
robotic arms. They can be conveniently subdivided into 3 sections just like human hand : the
arm consisting of one or more segments & joints ( like our upper arm with elbow joint), the
wrist (like our fore arm) and the gripper for holding objects (like our palm that has fingers).

Lets see how to design a forearm:-

In this case you can obtain number of orientation of the gripper so that it can hold the object
better.
(e.g., Orientation: just twist your palm and you have a different orientation.)

Workspace: it is the 3D space where your gripper can reach, just swing your arm about
shoulder and you have different places where your palm can reach. Now just rotate your arm
about your elbow (elbow provide extra degree of freedom).

Degree of freedom: it is basically the number of actuators for arms; you can have multiple
actuators at wrist and gripper.
Try to calculate the degree of freedom of our hand and you will be amazed…..
(Hint: Our shoulder provides more than one degree of freedom and each finger has three
degree of freedom)
Additional information:
A helicopter has 6 degree of freedom
1.) Linear motion in all 3 axis ( the sidewards motion is referred to as strafe)
2.) Rotation about all 3 axis: rotation about longitudinal axis (through nose) is called roll,
about vertical axis is called yaw and transverse axis is called yaw.

Now let’s see designs of simple arms which can be easily replicated at home.

(It is a simple mechanism you can use to hold objects. Fix spur gears at end of each arm and
rotate one arm with help of a motor and the arms will move in opposite sense.)

(It is also a similar mechanism but here you have worm gear box attached to motor shaft that
creates motion perpendicular to its orientation)
(If you have a simple motor and you can use an external worm and worm gear arrangement to
change the direction of output)

(This is a nut and bolt mechanism that is also used in jack to lift car. It converts rotary motion
to linear.)