A writing and sketching robot

Abstract

The use of robotic manipulators has been on the rise for the past couple of years and as a result the interaction between humans and robots has become more commonplace. Robot manipulators have proven to be a very useful tool in a number of situations and have been suitably modified to cater for a multitude of applications. With the advancements in mechanical hardware technology and computational power, a growing body of interest in the development of robot manipulators to perform basic functions of human arm has emerged. One such task is the ability to write or sketch. The main objective of this dissertation is to implement on an industrial manipulator the necessary control schemes in order to allow the manipulator to be able to write or sketch a given trajectory on a flat whiteboard surface using standard markers. In this project, a parallel position/force controller was successfully implemented on a 5 degree of freedom (DOF) anthropomorphic robot manipulator equipped with a force/torque (F/T) sensor system to measure the contact force between the end-effector and the environment. The effectiveness of the implemented controller has been illustrated and verified through a comprehensive series of experiments.