Study of an Assistive Robotics 5-DoF System Prototype to be Taught in Undergraduate Engineering Classes

Abstract

The practical examples in laboratory classes help the students to understand and apply what is learned in theoretical courses. In recent years, robotics has been used in the most diverse fields, including medicine. Therefore, it is necessary to insert low-complexity prototypes that encompass the necessary fundamentals of learning for the robotics field, including assistive robotics. The advancement of embedded electronics and processing units at a more affordable price caused several assistive medicine projects to have been carried out through applied electronics. This study proposes the development of an initial prototype to assist students in the robotic field. The system uses two MPU9250 inertial sensor units with 9 degrees of freedom (DoF). The communication takes place by the I2C protocol, so there is a wide range of microcontrollers capable of acquiring and interpreting data movements. This project does not require a robust level of processing and consists of a low-cost system. As a consequence, it was chosen to be used the ESP32 devKitC-V4 with two Xtensa® 32-bit LX6 microprocessors. As a result, it is possible to read the arm movement data in real-time. The system enables the students to learn about the fundamentals of robotics, embedded programming, and signal processing through a simple prototype.