A Beginners Guide to Robotics & Embedded System

By
Udit Sangwan President: Tech Robotrix Society (Electrical & Electronics Department)

Chapter : 1- Introduction To Robotics

You must be thinking about what must actually a robot is ____________, rajnikanth? Transformers? , funny, well the answer is really very simple the machine that solves your task, works efficiently without getting tired. Well a robot is a machine with motion, like we can call a JCB as a robot but not a photocopy machine. Robot making needs total engineering skills, mechanical for designing, electronics for circuitry, electrical for power management and cs/it for programming a robot. Well there are basically two types of robot: 1. Manual Robot 2. Autonomous Robot

Manual Robot: No Brain, No intelligence results to manual robot, these types of robots are too controlled manually. We can also know them as remote controlled robot, there designing are done as for specific task and then they are controlled manually. Autonomous Robot:

Intelligent Robots are autonomous robot, they have brains and controlled through Micro controller (to be discussed) . Although this brain is embedded by us, then programmed by us for the specific task. But they are intelligent as perform there task without our help. Special Type of Robot i.e. Semiautonomous Robot , These robots are robots with brain but need our assistance to work properly. Now , I think we are ready to start discussing about the construction detail of robots in different chapter for different types of robot.

Chapter: 2 Manual Robots Manual robotics is nothing but it is an introduction to Mechanical & Electrical Aspects in Robotics. Manual Robotics is one in which human controlled robots using switches, relays and joystick. Manual robotics is just consist 1. Chassis And Drive Mechanism 2. Gripper And Lifting Mechanism 3. Power Supply Chassis And Drive Mechanism:-

Chassis is the base of robot, so you need to decide what material to be used while making base i.e. (Wooden or Mfr sheet, Fiber or iron). While making base following point keep following point in mind. It should bear weight of the entire component to be placed over it. Extra strength to be provided to avoid damage. Dimension and material should be strong but of less weight.

Now i think we should talk formally and start building a manual robot of just 2- wheel, 1 caster wheel a chassis, wish it may give you brief idea what I am talking from last few minute. Actually we need 2- D.C Motor to drive the robot, but I think discussing about motor is not the correct time, so lets construct a chassis first then we will discuss. To build a chassis you need a base, lets for example we take a fiber base and now we need to mount motor and caster wheel on it. Caster wheel is to be fixed in front to balance the robot. To mount motor clips are attached to base, so that it can hold your motor then tires are attached to your motor and your base is ready. The image1shown is mounting brackets for small dc motors, motors are fixed in center then these clips are screwed on the base.

Image -2 is of dc motors, image -3 is tires mount on motors and 4th is of caster wheel.

Few Images showing complete structure of robot.

(Front view)

(Top View)

(Bottom View)

Now, I think you have got idea of building a simple base of robot. So lets move on to the driving mechanism, that how to drive a robot. Once connection of battery is made to motors then If you rotate both motor in same direction robot will go straight. If you stop left motor, and rotate only right motor then robot will turn left, vice versa robot will turn robot right. If you rotate left motor in forward direction and rotate right motor in backward direction then robot will take sharp turn. If you are planning to build an high speed robot with high torque then you need to use gear mechanism drive to drive the robot. Well speed and torque both are inversely proportional to each other if speed that is if rpm of motor increases its torque will decrease, so to maintain both gears mechanism is used. You can also increase your speed of robot by increasing radial radius of tires as we all know,
v = * r, where v= linear velocity and is angular velocity and r is the radius In this case to increase the linear speed you need to increase the radius, i.e. radius of tires as angular velocity is constant that is rpm of motor.

Thus concept of increasing speed is now clear in upcoming section we will discuss how to increase the speed using gears, actually some dc motors are of very high r.p.m but there torque is very less so gears are used to decrease there speed and increase the torque, as there r.p.m is about 3000 r.p.m. Concept Of Gears :-

Gripper And Lifting Mechanism:-

Gripper and lifting mechanism are two common problem task of any robot if you need to drag something then you have to grip it and if you want to lift it then you need to grip as well as you need to lift. For gripping mechanism there can be two best possibilities: 1-fixed arm and other arm to be their in motion. Both arms to be in motion, the motors with gears are responsible for arm motion. Images show the griping mechanism the black is representing Dc Motor use to drive the gears. If Motor moves in left then its start closing and if if moves toward right it start opening. Similarly lifting mechanism need a rod that to b placed horizontally and a motor is to be placed on its bottom, so when motor sets in motion is start lifting your entire mechanism.

Power Supply:There are two ways to provide power supply to a robot i.e. on board and off board in On-Board power supply is given through battery and in Off- Board it is provided through adapters. Making of a 12 Volt Adapter:-

Things that you will need to make this power supply are... 1. 2. 3. 4. A step down transformer 240/12v Capacitor(1500mf/12v) Bridge rectifier Shunt resister

1st connect bridge rectifier on secondary side of the transformer. Then filter the output supply by using a capacitor and connect a shunt resister for finding constant current.

The power supply is of 1 amps constant .

Here, we end up with manual robotics, or we can basic need of a robot as, each robot need a chassis, power supply and a mechanism to perform various task. I think I m forgetting to tell you how to control a robot with a switch, but you can directly control motion of robot using LT controllers in available at very less rate in market. Robotics is not going to end here still many things and many topics are left to achieve. Its very simple just a proper guidance is needed, I m sure that from today you are not going to ask from where I can startup for robotics.