Designing and Implementing a Model for a Microcontroller Controlled Pick and Place

Abstract

Robots are used for the most boring and repetitive jobs in manufacturing. The military and police use robots for dangerous jobs, such as manipulating explosive devices. Robots are used in inaccessible places, such as exploring the bottom of the sea. Being simple, cheap, and particularly designed for a specific job, tailored robotic arms are being frequently used in the industry of today. In this research, a model for two degrees of freedom picks and place robotic arm was designed, simulated with Proteus Virtual System Modeling (VSM) software, then built and tested. The model consists of a servomotor which drives a cylindrical link that rotates about its vertical axis, a second motor which drives a rectangular link that rotates about a horizontal axis, and a third servomotor which operate a gripper attached to the rectangular link. The three motors are controlled by an Atmega-16L microcontroller programmed via BASCOM-AVR software. When a start push button was pressed, the arm moved from its home position, picked a piece from a specific place, place it at a target place, and kept repeating this till a stop push button was pressed.