Robotics Syllabus

ROBOTICS
Course Code: ECE634
Credits: 3:0:0
Prerequisites: Control Systems
Contact Hours: 42
Course Instructor: Dr. Lakshmi
Shrinivasan
 UNIT - I
• Basic Concepts: Definition of robotics, Robotic
architecture, Classification of robots, Industrial
applications
• Actuators and Grippers: Electric actuator,
Hydraulic, Pneumatic, Electric drives
 UNIT – II
Internal and External Sensors:
Internal sensors, Position sensors, Incremental
encoder, Absolute encoder, Resolver velocity
sensors, Tachometer and hall effect sensor,
Acceleration and forces sensors, Hall effect,
Touch sensors, Proximity sensors, Ultrasonic
sensors, Laser sensors for range measurements,
Machine vision sensors
 UNIT – III
Transformation: Rotation matrix, Composite
rotation matrix, Rotation matrix with Euler
angles representation, Homogenous
transformation matrix, DH representation,
Homogenous transformation for various arm
configurations
 UNIT – IV

Robotic Operating System (ROS):

Introduction to OpenCV, OpenNI, PCL –
Programming Kinect with Python using ROS,
OpenCV, OpenNI– Point clouds using Kinect,
ROS, OpenNI, PCL
 UNIT – V
Interfacing with ROS:
Building ChefBot hardware, ROS Python
driver for ChefBot, ChefBot ROS launch files,
ChefBot Python nodes and launch files,
Calibration and testing of ChefBot
 Textbooks
1. S K Saha, “Introduction to Robotics”, 2nd
Edition, McGraw Hill Education Pvt. Ltd,
2008.
2. S Fu, R C Gonzalez, C S G Lee, “Robotics
Control, Sensing Vision and Intelligence”, 3rd
Edition, McGraw Hill International, 2016.
3. Lentin Joseph, “Learning Robotics using
Python”, 2ndEdition, PACKT Publishing,
2015.

References:
 Course Outcomes (COs)
1. Appreciate the architecture and applications of
robots (POs – 1, 2, PSO – 1)
2. Analyze the principles of various sensors and
their applications in robots (POs – 1, 2, PSO –
1)
3. Apply DH parameter and homogenous
transforms for robotic applications (POs –1, 2,
3, PSO – 1)
4. Acquire knowledge ROS. (PO – 1, 2, 3, PSO –
1)
5. Describe hardware design of ChefBot. (PO –
 What is a Robot?
• The word robot originated from the Czech
word robota, meaning work.
• Webster's dictionary defines robot as, "an
automatic device that performs functions
ordinarily ascribed to human beings.“
• A robot is a reprogrammable multifunctional
manipulator designed to move materials, parts,
tools, or specialized devices, through variable
programmed motions for the performance of a
variety of tasks.
• A robot must possess intelligence, which is
normally due to computer
• Algorithms associated with its control and
sensing systems.
• An industrial robot is a general-purpose,
computer-controlled manipulator
• Consisting of several rigid links connected in
series by revolute or prismatic joints
• Mechanically, a robot is composed of an arm
(or mainframe) and a wrist subassembly plus a
tool. It is designed to reach a workpiece
located within its work volume.
• The work volume is the sphere of influence of
• The arm subassembly generally can move with
three degrees of freedom.
AGVs
Walking Harvester Hexapod
Stewart parallel platform robot
 Applications of Robots
• Medical
–Surgeon Extender
–Auxillary surgical support
–Da Vinci robot minimally invasive
surgery
• Mining – Autonomous Truck
• Space- Mars Pathfinder, NASA,
Chandrayan and Magalyan, ISRO
• Underwater- CEMRI, Durgapur
 Robot Classification
• https://slideplayer.com/slide/14167398/
• Industrial and non-industrial or special purpose
robot
• Industrial Robot
– General purpose, unskilled or semiskilled e.g
welding, painting, machining etc.
– Serial structure
– Cincinnati Milacron (T3) USA
– Six- axis robot from MTAB India
Special purpose Robot
Mars exploration – Pathfinder Lander
Sojourner microrover
Special purpose robots are classified
as
• Automated Guided vehicles (AGVs)
– Factories for material handling
– Wired path (2 DOF)
– Omnidirectional wheels (3 DOF)
• Walking Robots
– Ohio State University walking robot, Hexapod
• Parallel Robots
– Flight simulator or truck or ground vehicle
simulations
– Medical surgery
– Milling machine
Revolute joint
Prismatic joint
 Robot Subsystems
The robot has 3 subsystems
• Motion subsystem
• Recognition subsystem
• Control subsystem
Motion Subsystem:
• Physical structure of robot carries out desired
motion
• The elements of motion subsystems are,
– Manipulator
– End effector
– Actuator
– Transmission
Manipulator:
• Physical structure which moves around
• It comprises of links and joints normally
connected in series
• Each link is made up of steel or aluminum or
any other material
• Joints are normally
• revolute or prismatic
End effector:
• It is the part attached at the end of the robot
manipulator
• Mechanical hand manipulates the object.
• E.g. two fingered or multi fingered gripper
• Grippers are specialized
• Tools attached at the
• End of manipulator
• E.g. electrode, spray
• Painting brush,
• Debarring tool etc.
Actuator:

• Provide motion to the manipulator links and

end effectors
• Based on principle of operation classified as
– Electric
• Ac or dc motor through transmission elements
– Pneumatic
– Hydraulic
Transmission:
• These elements transmit motion from electric
motor and pneumatic/hydraulic actuators to
actual links of manipulator
• Typical transmission elements are
• Belt and Chain drives
• Gears
• Link mechanism
– Reduce flexibility and
– weight Of transmission
– element
• Screw mechanism
– Ball-screw with 4 bar
Transmission:
• Gears:
• These are long –lasting and reliable
Recognition subsystem:
• It consists of following elements:
• Sensors
– Sensors are essentially transducers
– E.g. vision, touch, proximity, speech etc.
• ADC
– Interface sensors to robot controller
– Converts analog data signal to digitized form
Control subsystem:
• It consists of following elements
• Digital Controller
– CPU, memory and some time hard disk to store
programs
– Control the movement of manipulator and end
effector
– Control command signals are sent
– Various programming techniques are used
– E.g. KUKA ,Germany uses KRL language, Karel
by Japan
• DAC
– Converts digitals signal from robot controller to
Control subsystem
 Classification of ROBOTS
Based on following ways
– Coordinate Systems
• Cartesian
• Cylindrical
• Spherical or Polar
• Articulated or revolute
– Actuation Systems
• Electric power
• Fluid power – pneumatic and hydraulic
– Control Methods
• Servo/non-servo-controlled
• Motion control
– Point to point (PTP)
Coordinate systems :
• When the arm of a robot moves in a rectilinear
mode i.e. directions x, y & z coordinates of the
rectangular right handed Cartesian system.
• The robot called Cartesian robot.
• The movements are referred as travel x, height
or elevation y and reach z of the arm.
• The workspace has the shape of rectangular
or prism
• Large volume to operate, rigid structure and
provide accurate position of the end-effector.
• Maintenance is difficult
• More expensive.
Cartesian coordinate system..
 Applications of Cartesian robots
• Pick-and-Place Operations: Cartesian robots
are commonly used in manufacturing for
simple pick-and-place tasks, where precision
and repeatability are essential.
• Assembly Line Automation: They are
suitable for assembling products with linear
movements along the X, Y, and Z axes.
• Palletizing and Material Handling: Cartesian
robots excel in tasks such as stacking and
organizing materials on pallets.
Cylindrical systems
• Arm of a robot possesses one revolute and
two prismatic joints.
• From Cartesian type, one prismatic joint is
replaced by one revolute with its axis rotated
by 90°about the reach z axis.
• The cylindrical coordinate points are
represented by angle height y, and radius z
• Robot has base rotation ,elevation and reach
respectively.
• The workspace is cylindrical shape.
• E.g. Welding pipes (task requires to work on
Cylindrical system…
 Applications of Cylindrical robots
• Assembly Operations: Cylindrical robots are
suitable for assembly tasks, especially those
involving circular or cylindrical objects.
• Machine Tending: They are used in machine
tending applications, such as loading and
unloading parts from machines like CNC
machines.
• Inspection and Testing: Cylindrical robots can
be employed in quality control processes that
require precise movements along cylindrical
paths.
Spherical or polar systems
• Arm of a robot has , two revolute joints and
one prismatic joint i.e. second prismatic joint
from cylindrical type along y is replaced by a
revolute joint with its axis rotated by 90°about
the reach z axis.
• Spherical coordinates are,
• The arm movements are represented by base
rotation, elevation angles and reach
respectively.
• The workspace is spherical in shape.
Spherical or polar systems…
 Applications of Spherical(or Polar)
robots
• Painting and Coating: Spherical robots are often
used in automotive painting applications due to
their ability to reach complex surfaces.
• Welding: They can be employed for welding
tasks in various industries, especially where
circular or spherical movements are required.
• Material Removal: Spherical robots are effective
in tasks that involve removing material from
irregular surfaces.
Articulated or revolute systems:
• Robot arm consists of links connected by
revolute joints only, the third prismatic joint of
the spherical system is replaced by revolute
joint with its axis rotated by 90° about
• It is called articulated or revolute jointed arm.
• Relatively simple to fabricate and maintain as
robot actuators are directly coupled through a
set of rotary gears or belt elements
• It has sphere like workspace.
• Coordinates are ,θ, φ, ψ
Articulated or revolute systems
 Applications of Articulated robots

• Automotive Manufacturing: Articulated robots

are widely used in the automotive industry for
tasks such as welding, painting, and assembly.
• Electronics Assembly: They are suitable for
assembling small electronic components with
their multi-joint flexibility.
• Material Handling: Articulated robots can
handle a wide range of materials in industries
like logistics and warehousing.
Transformation of robot-arm types
Comparison of fundamental robot
arms
Actuation systems
• Robots are driven by either electric or fluid
power
• Fluid power
– Pneumatic
– hydraulic
• Most common is electric with various types of
motors
– Stepper, dc servo, ac servo brushless etc.
• Pneumatic robots
– Light assembly or packing
• Hydraulic robots
Control methods
• Motion control strategy
– whether a robot is servo controlled or not
• How the motion path is achieved
– Point to point or continuous
• Servo/ non- servo control
– Servo controlled(closed loop)
• Good precision under heavy load, carry out complex
task with full confidence
• Commands sent – monitor both displacement and
velocity
• Feedback – error correction and modify the commands
• Electric and hydraulic robots
• PD, PI, PID, fuzzy, neural network – control algorithm
Control method contd..
• Motion control
– Continuous path
• Robot moves along continuous path with specified
orientations
• E.g. welding two metal parts along a straight line or
specified curve
• Robot programming
– On-line requires direct use of robots and uses PTP
programming and slave arms or grip attachment
for CP programming
– Off-line : most recent robots can be programmed
– Programming examples : VAL, ALU, KRL etc.
Industrial Applications
• Serial robots are mainly used in Industries for
various applications
• They have designed for specific applications
• E.g welding , spray painting ,assembling etc.
• Some of the industrial applications are
• Material Handling
– Robot grabs the object and moves to another
location or conveyer belt
• Processing
– Uses a tool, e.g electrode for welding rather than a
gripper
• Assembling
Material Handling:
• Fully automatic system developed to produce
mass production, increase productivity level,
robots are used
• Robots are used to load and unload machine
tool in two configurations
• A robot tending single machine
– Applied when typical machine time is short per
part
• A robot tending to several machines
– When a chain of operation must be executed to
complete a part
 Material handling contd..
• For many applications cylindrical, polar and
revolute robots are preferable.
• For material handling robot point to point
control is necessary
Welding: (manufacturing process)
• When two metal pieces are joined usually by
heating and fusing
• Its thermal process
• These are grouped in two classes
– With no filler material
– With filler material used of same parent material
• Two types of welding
• Spot and Arc welding
Spot welding
• Two metal pieces are joined at certain points
by melting or fusing their contacting surfaces
• The required heat is generated by passage of
electric current through the metals at the point
of joint
• Used in Automotive industries
• Control system – PTP used
• Electrode gun is heavy (10 to 80 kg)
hydraulically powered
• Increases efficiency, accuracy, save floor space
for robots as they can hang from ceiling
• Welding time is synchronized with assembly
Arc welding:
• Two metal pieces are joined together along a
continuous path by adding the filler material of
the same type of parent metal
• Required heat is generated by electric arc
between the electrode and metal
• It uses consumable wire electrode.
• E.g. MIG welding automatic wire feeder
• DC driven servomotors are used in arc robots
• 0.8 to 4.8 mm welding wire thickness is used
rolled on drum and moved by motor with
controlled speed
• CP type control system is used
Spray painting (processing)
• It’s a kind of processing used in manufacturing
industry
• Unhealthy, unpleasant environment, solvent
used are toxic, small area, noise pollution can
damage to ears, dust free room and controlled
temperature makes ideal for robots than human
operators
• These robots have CP capability, small payload
Images of welding robots
Spray painting robots
Drilling :

• Precise drilling
• Can replace operator
• Gripper of robot holds a drill and guides from
hole to hole
• At each hole fixed drill cycle is performed then
robot moves to next drill hole
• Programming is simple, PTP is used
Drilling machining Robots
Deburring
Deburring ..
• Manually deburring process is carried out.
• Two ways to perform robotized deburring
• If the part is relatively lightweight, then robot
picks it up and brought to deburring tool
• If it is heavy robot holds the tool (support
system can be used)
• Relative motion between tool and the part is
CP type, high repeatability and highly
controlled speed.
• Difficult task for robot.
Assembling
• Used for small products such as electrical
switches and small motors
• Robotized assembly system are programmable
and cost effective solution for assembly of
small batch sizes and batches containing
different products
• More than one robots can interact
• Any coordinate system robots can be designed
• E.g. assembly of PCBs 4-DOF robot used
– Wrist has 2 axes of motion : linear vertical
displacement and roll movement
Assembling robots
 Actuators
• Drives a robot including grippers.
• An actuator comprises of several subsystems
Actuators ..
• Electric actuator
– Input power electric energy
• Hydraulic actuator
– Transform hydraulic energy stored in reservoir into
mechanical energy
• Pneumatic actuator
– Pneumatic energy (compressed air provided by a
compressor )and transform into mechanical energy
Actuators
• Characteristics of actuators
Electric actuators Electric motor drives a robot
through some mechanical transmission e.g. gears etc.
Electric actuator..
Electric actuator..
• Stepper motors
– Small and medium robots : hobby or teaching
– Widely used in industry also
– May need feedback system or not hence cost
effective
– Fully servo-controlled configurations in medium
duty industrial robot
– No need of DAC MODULE when connected to
computer control system
– Digital motor or step size control motor
– Two main parts : stator and rotar
– Control pulse excites stator phases and aligns the
 Grippers are End Effectors
• Grasp an object :
– Hold workpiece, load/unload from/to machine or
on a conveyer
• Types of Grippers: based on principle of
grasping mechanism
– Mechanical Gripper
– Magnetic Gripper
– Vacuum Gripper
• Mechanical Grippers: Jaw movements using
transmission elements
– Pivotal movement
– Translational movement
Grippers contd..
• Two ways gripper can hold the objects:
– Physical constriction
• Gripper surface area made same shape ass that of the
object
– Friction
• Fingers must apply sufficient force to object to hold
against gravity or accelerations
• Action of gripping is done two ways
– Pivoting movement
• Fingers rotate on fixed point to open and close gripper
– Translational movement
• Fingers open and close by moving parallel to each other
Gripper contd..
Magnetic Gripper
• Uses permanent Magnet or Electromagnet
Vacuum Gripper