Manipulator control board

Abstract

The Mechatronics Research Centre (MRC) owns a small scale robot manipulator called a Mini-Mover 5. This robot arm is a microprocessor-controlled, six-jointed mechanical arm designed to provide an unusual combination of dexterity and low cost. The Mini-Mover-5 is operated by a number of stepper motors and is controlled by a PC parallel port via a discrete logic board. The manipulator also has an impoverished array of sensors. This project requires that a new control board and suitable software be designed to allow the manipulator to be controlled from a PC. The control board will also provide a mechanism for the values measured using some sensors to be returned to the PC. On this project I will consider: stepper motor control requirements, sensor technologies, power requirements, USB protocols, USB hardware and software development and control requirements (e.g. sample rates). In this report we will have a look at robots history and background, as well as we will concentrate how stepper motors and parallel port work