Development of a Microcontroller Based Robotic Arm

Abstract

Robotic arm has become popular in the world of robotics. The essential part of the robotic arm is a programmable microcontroller based brick capable of driving basically three stepper motors design to form an anthropomorphic structure. The first design was for experimental use on a human-size industrial robot arm called PUMA 560 used to explore issues in versatile object handling and compliance control in grasp actions (Bejczy & Jau, 1986). This paper explains the method of interfacing the robotic arm stepper motors with the programmed 8051-based microcontroller which are used to control the robot operations. We have employed the assembly language in programming our microcontroller. A sample robot which can grab (by magnetizing) and release small objects (by demagnetizing) is built for demonstrating the method explained.