Multimode Control and Simulation of 6-DOF Robotic Arm in ROS

Abstract

The paper proposes the design and simulation of a 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) robotic arm, tailored for the coconut crop harvesting, assistive robots like wheelchairs and Home robots, Search and rescue robots for disastrous environments, Collaborative robots for research use. A kinematics-based solution has been developed for the robotic arm which makes it easier to operate and use. Keyboard, GUI, Joystick are the three control interfaces used in the paper. The robotic control interfaces proposed in the paper were developed using the Robot Operating System (ROS). The 6-DOF articulated robotic arm was designed and visualized in RVIZ. The kinematics helped for the easy manipulation of the robotic arm with the end effector. The methodologies proposed in the research work are easy to operate and inexpensive. The designed 6 DOF robotic arm, the first three DOFs are for positioning of the robot's arm, while the residual three are used for manipulation of the gripper.