GUJRAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Chandkheda, Ahmedabad
Affiliate

L.J. Institute of Engineering and Technology

A Report on Gesture Base Robotic Arm
Under Subject of
DESIGN ENGINEERING 2B
B.E. III, Semester - VI
(Instrumentation and Control)

Submitted by:
Sr.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Student Name
Devesh Prajapati
Sumit Patel
Shivansh Trivedi
Ankur Panchal

Enrollment No.
130320117038
130320117037
130320117056
130320117020

Mrs. Ketki Devpura

(Faculty Guide)
Mr. Mosam Pandya
(Head of the Department)
Academic Year
(2015-2016)
1

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the titled Gesture Base Robotic Arm

submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the subject of Design Engineering
in the 6th semester of Instrumentation and Control engineering by Devesh
Prajapati (130030117038) is a benefited record of the candidates own work
carried out by them under my supervision and guidance.

Date of submission:

Faculty Guide:

Head of the Department:

Mrs. Ketki Devpura

Mr. Mosam Pandya

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the titled Gesture Base Robotic Arm

submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the subject of Design Engineering
in the 6th semester of Instrumentation and Control engineering by Ankur
Panchal (130030117020) is a benefited record of the candidates own work
carried out by them under my supervision and guidance.

Date of submission:

Faculty Guide:

Head of the Department:

Mrs. Ketki Devpura

Mr. Mosam Pandya

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the titled Gesture Base Robotic Arm

submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the subject of Design Engineering
in the 6th semester of Instrumentation and Control engineering by Sumit Patel
(130030117037) is a benefited record of the candidates own work carried out
by them under my supervision and guidance.

Date of submission:

Faculty Guide:

Head of the Department:

Mrs. Ketki Devpura

Mr. Mosam Pandya

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the titled Gesture Base Robotic Arm

submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the subject of Design Engineering
in the 6th semester of Instrumentation and Control engineering by Shivansh
Trivedi (130030117056) is a benefited record of the candidates own work
carried out by them under my supervision and guidance.

Date of submission:

Faculty Guide:

Head of the Department:

Mr. Ketki Devpura

Mr. Mosam Pandya

INDEX
Introduction
Modeling and Analysis using Software
Engineering economics of Design
Design for use, reuse and sustainability
Prototyping
Comparison
Conclusion
Future scope

INTRODUCTION
In todays world, in almost all sectors, most of the work is done by robots or

robotic arm having different number of degree of freedoms as per the

requirement.
A robotic arm is a robot manipulator, which can perform similar functions to a
Human arm.
Robotic arms are the vital part of almost all the industries. In industries, a
robotic arm perform various different tasks such as welding, trimming, picking
and placing etc.
Moreover the biggest advantage of these arms is that it can work in hazardous
areas and also in the areas which cannot be accessed by human.
For example in NASAs mission to Mars, the Spirit and Opportunity drone. It is
also used to implement highly precise medical treatments etc.
Many variants of these robots/robotic are available or designed as per the
requirement. Few variants are Keypad Controlled, Voice Control, Gesture
Control, etc.
However, most of the industrial robots are still programmed using the typical
teaching process which is still a tedious and time-consuming task that requires
technical expertise. Therefore, there is a need for new and easier ways for
programming the robots.
Robotic arm whose objective is to imitate the movements of a human arm using
accelerometers as sensors for the data acquisition of the natural arm
movements.
The above method of control allows greater flexibility in controlling the robotic
arm rather than using a controller where each actuator is controlled separately.
7

LITERATURE REVIEW
A mechanism guided by automatic controls. ISO describes a robot as an

automatically

controlled

reprogrammable,

multipurpose

manipulator

programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or

mobile for use in industrial automation applications.
Being able to achieve reliable long distance communication with user-friendly
robot control is an important open area of research to robotics.
Programming and control of a robot through the use of the robot teach pendant
is a tedious and time-consuming task that requires technical expertise.
Therefore, new and more intuitive ways for robot programming and control are
required. The goal is to develop methodologies that help users to control and
program a robot, with a high-level of abstraction from the robot specific
language.
In the robotics field, several research efforts have been made to create userfriendly teach pendants, implementing intuitive user interfaces such as color
touch screens, a 3D joystick. But, neither of these techniques is efficient to
control the robot as they do not give accurate results and have slow response
time.
In the last few years the robot manufacturers have made great efforts towards
creating Human Machine Interfacing Device -recognizing human gestures,
recurring to vision-based systems, or using finger gesture recognition systems
based on active tracking mechanisms. Using data glove is a better idea over
camera as the user has flexibility of moving around freely within a radius
limited by the range of wireless connecting the glove to the computer, unlike
the vision based technique where the user has to stay in position before the
8

Camera .The cause of light, electric or magnetic fields or any other interruption
does not affect the performance of the glove.
So Accelerometer-based gesture recognition has become increasingly popular
over the last decade compared to vision based technique. The low-moderate
cost and relative small size of the accelerometers make it an effective tool to
detect and recognize human body gestures.
Wired communication is not suitable to transmit data over long distances as
wiring itself is a problem. The next option is to adopt wireless communication
which includes Bluetooth, WI-Fi and ZigBee.

Paper-1
Pedro Neto, J. Norberto Pires, Member, IEEE, and A. Paulo Moreira, Member, IEEE
Accelerometer-Based Control of an Industrial Robotic Arm

Conclusion
A robotic system that allows users to control an industrial robot using arm gestures
and postures was proposed. Two 3-axis accelerometers were selected to be the input
devices of this system, capturing the human arms behaviors. Using this system, a
nonexpert robot programmer can control a robot quickly and in a natural way.

Paper-2
Vivek Bhojak, Girish Kumar Solanki, Sonu Daultani, Gesture Controlled Mobile
Robotic Arm Using AccelerometerInternational Journal of Innovative Research in
Science, Engineering and Technology, (IJIRSET)

Conclusion
It provides a better way to control a robotic arm using accelerometer which is more
intuitive and easy to work, besides offering the possibility to control a robot by other
wireless means. Using this system non Experience robotic arm controller can easily
control robotic arm quickly and in a natural way. Also, many applications which
require precise control and work like human beings can be easily implemented using
this approach. And it provides more flexible control mechanism. Accelerometer
equipped with gyro sensors can help to make movement smoother. Although, the
gesture control is achieved but problem of noise and jerks can be there which can be
further removed by calibrating & taking more observations and using a much precise
smoothing algorithm.

Paper-3
N.V.MaruthiSagar, D.V.R.SaiManikanta Kumar, N.Geethanjali
MEMS Based Gesture Controlled Robot Using Wireless Communication
International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume 14
Number 4 - Aug 2014

Conclusion
Accelerometers have low load driving capacity and also the signal may eventually
deteriorate and ultimately result in wrong interpretation by the controller. So the
proper signal conditioning is required for avoiding loading effects on sensor and then
filter is used for avoiding high frequency external noise interruption. Analog to Digital
Convertor Section The output of all the sensors will be in analog form so it needs to
be digitized for processing and working upon by the processor.

10

Modeling and Analysis using software

Flowchart for Transmitter:

Flowchart for Receiver:

Engineering Economics of Design

Cost Estimation:
Components used
Arduino Uno Board
(Atmega )
DC Servo Motors
Gripper Mechanism
PVC Sheet
BT Module
Motor Driver
DC Battery
Twisted Pair Wires(2m)
Screw and others

No.
1

Price
550

3
1
1
1
1
3
Total Cost(INR)

650
550
500
300
300
50
30
50
4380

The Time value of Money:

We needed two days to purchase the component from the market as all those
do not available at same place.

After that we needed one day to assemble it as and gave an arm structure.

We need at least three day to write program for arm movement and simulate it in
proteus. And also interface program with microcontroller.

So we need at least one week to make this a Gesture Base Robotic Arm.

Design for Use, Reuse and Sustainability:

Design for USE:
The working hours of Arduino are around 1500 hrs.
That of DC motor are 500 hrs.
Working hrs. of the L293D drive is 1000 hrs.
Working hours of Bluetooth module are 2100 hrs. (3 months approx.).
On an average the product working hrs. 450-550 hrs. (around 20 days).

Reliability:
It is reliable because it doesnt requires more changes of the components and it has the fixed
body. But for longer duration it is not reliable.

Maintainability:
Its maintenance is easy and the by using customized aurdino , we can increase lifetime of
robot and it require less component.

Design for Reuse:

For reuse of the robot if driver circuit or motor is to be changed then after changing the
component it can be reused.

Design for sustainability:

The product can sustain nominal disturbances in the environment like ambient temperature
effect, dusty environment, hardy and durable chassis make the product sustainable.

Comparison:

Comparison among Communication Signals:

Gesture recognition method

MEMS, or micro electro mechanical systems used in an accelerometer basically
consist of tiny structures that are basically akin to a mass on a spring. As the chip
moves, the inertia of the very tiny mass bends the very tiny strings, which changes the
electrical property of the spring (probably resistance or capacitance), which can be
electrically measured.
Using accelerometer is a better idea over image processing as the user has flexibility
of moving around freely within a radius limited by the range of wireless connecting
the glove to the computer, unlike the vision based technique where the user has to stay
in position before the camera. The cause of light, electric or magnetic fields or any
other interruption does not affect the performance of the gloves.

Controller
8051 is a micro controller and Arduino is a development platform which uses the
ATMEL AVR micro controllers. IDE for AVR comes with the necessary header files
however that not the scene with the IDE for 8051 (Kiel). Cost of PLC is very high so it
is not suitable.

Existing Product
Currently in market, gesture controlled robots are available with two degree of
freedom whose price ranges from Rs.6000/- to Rs.7000/- depending upon the quality
.More costly versions are also available.

Conclusion:
The objectives of this project has been achieved which was developing the
hardware and software for an accelerometer controlled robotic arm. From
observation that has been made, it clearly shows that its movement is precise,
accurate, and is easy to control and user friendly to use.
The robotic arm has been developed successfully as the movement of the robot
can be controlled precisely. This robotic arm control method is expected to
overcome the problem such as placing or picking object that away from the
user, pick and place hazardous object in a very fast and easy manner.

Future Scope:
Currently it is operated by Bluetooth signals. Bluetooth has very small range (approx.
10m). But it can be replaced by Wi-Fi or Zigbee Signals which have very large range.
Moreover for the industrial purpose Robotic Arm can be also interfaced with PLC.