Manipulator

A six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm will be an ideal design choice for retrieving the payload. Since this manipulator will be able to achieve all possible kinematic states within the design space, this will make path-planning easier. The goal is for the manipulator to precisely retrieve the payload and deposit it in the payload chamber. The manipulator will be controlled by a microcontroller, which will translate received poses from the planning algorithms into actual arm movements. Servo motors can be utilized in combination with PID controllers for each joint in order to obtain accurate movement. Using techniques such as Kalman filtering, noise can be reduced to achieve a high degree of precision.

• Sensors will be responsible for gathering required information. This will include visual and depth information of the surrounding and also detecting the location of the target of interest (the payload).

• After processing the digital signal, a data map of the coordinate system to the 3D world will  be constructed and stored in the system. This functionality will use a combination of OpenCV and the Point-Cloud-Library.

• Using search algorithms such as A*, a path for the manipulator will be generated in the planning stage. The paths will be translated into arm movements through inverse kinematics algorithms.

The controller of the robot will take in the required movements for the manipulator and command each joint and the gripper to carry out the desired action.