Virtual prototyping, physical structure development and PC control of a double arm (five link) SCARA robot

Abstract

Abstract The research presented in this paper is linked to parallel kinematics robots, their performances evaluation and analysis of their integration opportunity at industrial level. Along this research a double arm SCARA robot (including planar parallel kinematics of a 5 links / 2 DOF mechanism) was developed. The first stage of the project consisted of robot physical structure 3D modelling. The second stage of the project was oriented towards kinematic modelling of robot’s mechanism. Next, in the third stage of the project the real robot was built, including the mechanical structure, the sensorial and electrical driving system for the planar mechanism, the pneumatic driving system for the vertical axis and the vacuum gripper. The fourth stage of the project consisted of configuring the robot controller so that it could be programmed and controlled through a PC. This implied the establishment of communication protocols between the robot’s PLC and the PC, the development of the programming & control software interface for PC robot control. Using this interface, the robot was programmed to perform a pick-and-place application. In the final stage of the project the repeatability of the robot was measured in order to evaluate the accuracy characteristics of robot’s parallel kinematic structure.