Design and development of a light manipulator arm for a mobile robot

The objective of this dissertation is to design and implement a light manipulator with a controller for an autonomous vehicle and perform tasks such as pressing a lift button. Although a manipulator gives several degrees of freedom to an autonomous vehicle, it is required to be properly designed so as to not burden the overall weight and power consumption of the criterion of the vehicle. Implementation of light manipulators requires precise calculations and a good choice of materials for the construction of the structure. Often light manipulators exhibit problems such as arm sagging and collapse of the structure due to improper choice of actuators and structure materials. A manipulator is designed and implemented in this thesis with a detailed description of its design and performance analysis. The controller plays a crucial role in the performance of the manipulator. A system has to be chosen that is able to calculate parameters required for the control of the manipulator and also provide a suitable interface for the communication to and fro the actuators both at logical and hardware levels. A microcontroller is used to design the controller in this project with specifications to handle all the criteria required for the manipulator’s sound performance.Master of Science (Computer Control and Automation