Let's Not Throw Away that Big and Bulky Manipulator - Revitalize It!

摘要

In this work, we proposed a framework to interfacing the existed manipulators with a modern programming environment. A serial protocol (RS-232) communication between the robot and a computer was developed. Modem and state-of-the-art programming environments, such as MATLAB Robotics Toolbox, or free version of Robotics Toolbox from Peter Corke, etc., can be used to communicate and control the robot. Bypassing the provided and outdated software retired together with the robots by their manufacturers, students now have a greater flexibility to choose programming languages as their preference. Moreover, they can utilize many open source and up-to-date libraries to create their own software to solve vast problems ranging from forward/inverse kinematics/dynamics, path planning, to robot vision and learning in a graphical user-friendly environment. This work was implemented at Colorado State University-Pueblo undergraduate engineering program. Students were exposed to both approaches, using provided software from robot providers and following the new proposed framework. The preliminary student survey was conducted and produced a promising feedback.