10th week: Cyton movement

This week, i was able to synchronize cyton arm movements creating a new ROS node to control the speed of each joint. I also designed a new gripper with the possibility to attach 2 Force Sensing Resistor.

9th week: FSR

This week, using an arduino (communicating with PC via TCP/IP) and 3 voltage divider I was able to connect 3 Force Sensing Resistor (FSR). I provisionally installed the sensors and started doing experimental tests so i can later control the robotic gripper movements -grab, hold and drop objects.

8th week: Kinect – hand tracker

This week, I worked with Kinect and used openni_tracker package to track my hand coordinates, so i can set those coordinates as the desired goal for cyton end effector position.

7th week: Cyton IK

The work I did in the past 3 weeks was a turning point as this week I could finally get the inverse kinematics and Jacobian for Cyton applying a KDL solver. This means I’m now able to move the robot to a desired end effector coordinates inside it’s workspace.

 

6th week: MoveIt! setup

This week, using MoveIt! tutorials I was able to create a Semantic Robot Description Format (SRDF) and a few additional configuration files for Cyton gamma 1500. With these files it will be possible to use the MoveIt package to calculate the inverse kinematics.

5th week: Dynamixel Controller

This week, I created the controller for Cyton dynamixel servos following the ROS dynamixel tutorials. These tutorials describe how to connect and examine raw feedback from Robotis Dynamixel servos.

4th week: FS holder

This week, I used CATIA v5 software to create a prototype which enable me to hold the force sensor in the robot’s arm.

3rd week: FS PCB

This week I’ve learned how to manage EAGLE Software and developed a PCB to convert the intervals of the issued signals transmitted by the transducer for a 0-5 V range, so it can be read by the arduino.

 

2nd week: ROS & C++ familiarization

This week I familiarized myself with ROS (Robot Operating System) and C++ with the help of tutorials, research and also attended a ROS workshop. This will be crucial in helping me explore and create applications for the thesis that I’m currently developing.

1st week: Research & Preliminary report

This week, I’ve been researching for projects similar to the thesis I’m currently working on, focusing mainly on those that were related with transference of objects between humans and robots. Additionally, I wrote a report with all the tasks necessary to follow the progress of my work throughout the development of the thesis.