ROBOTIC ARM PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES

Abstract

Robotics is one of the main emerging technologies that will allow the development of our society in the near future. At the present time, these devices make easier our lives and we can find them both in industry and households. It is therefore essential to provide the new generations with a robust training in this field. In this way, they will be able to integrate into the society of the future as well as achieve the maximum performance that this technology provides us. Educational platforms such as the one presented in this work, bring together and enable training in these cutting-edge technologies from a practical approach while improving understanding of their operation.Exists multiple techniques involved in the field of robotics, which makes this technology a multidisciplinary issue. These areas of knowledge are electronics, mechanics, control, and programming. Undoubtedly, the main field of current development is the programming of these devices. One of the main difficulties when learning programming is the high level of abstraction that characterizes this technique. The use of real robotic platforms is a very useful tool when facing this challenge. The introduction of a practical component in the educational cycle allows students to connect programming with the real world, thus facilitating their learning. In the same way, teaching the fundamentals of control engineering is a complex aspect due to its level of abstraction. A real device like the one presented in this paper allows the development of practical exercises where the student can check which are the different variables involved in the processes as well as the results obtained. On the other hand, the study of the different electronic and mechanical devices that are part of the robotic platform will facilitate the study of these components in a practical way. Finally, learning robotics as a multidisciplinary entity is difficult to achieve and takes long periods of time. Teaching techniques based on practical exercises such as those that can be developed with the robotics platform presented, allow to reduce these development times.The robotic platform consists in a robotic arm with 4 DOF (Degrees of Freedom), based in direct current motors. Each motor is coupled to a relative encoder that provides information of axes positions and is powered by its corresponding driver. A 12V battery powers the robot, which has a safety switch that cuts off the power in front of a possible emergency. It has a powerful 32-bit processing unit that works at 84 MHz and has a 512 KB memory to store the different computer programs. The device has been built entirely from scratch. This fact provides a high level of knowledge about the device, their components, and their design decisions. All this information will make it use in education more suitable due to the teaching opportunities that this feature provides. Multiple programming exercises can be proposed, oriented both to the control of the different motors and to the kinematic models that correspond to a higher level. In addition, activities can be performed in which the different design decisions made are questioned, providing alternative proposals.