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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

Design of a prototype of manipulator arm for implementing

pick-and-place task in industrial robot system using TCS3200
color sensor and ATmega2560 microcontroller

A Najmurrokhman*, K Kusnandar, F Maulana, B Wibowo and E Nurlina

Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani, Jl. Terusan Jend.
Sudirman PO Box 148 Cimahi 40533, Indonesia

*[email protected]

Abstract. It is widely known that the industrial robot system has supported an automation of
production process in the industry. A robot provides consistent and predictable productivity that
reduces management oversight. In manufacturing system, a manipulator arm is a type of robot
that commonly used to pick and place the workpieces into a certain position. This paper describes
a prototype of manipulator arm for implementing pick-and-place task in industrial robot system.
Manipulator arm separates items based on the color detected by the TCS3200 color sensor and
then processed by the ATmega2560 microcontroller. Furthermore, the output of the
microcontroller will send a signal to four servomotor drivers to move the robot arm in the desired
direction. The robot picks objects and places them in the designated place. The experiments are
carried out to pick objects with certain colors and shapes and place into the provided container.
The experimental result shows that manipulator arm works well according the design objective
such as color accuracy and time response of robot movement from initial time until achieving
the goal.

1. Introduction
Recently, the world is entering the fourth phase of the industrial revolution. The term Industry 4.0 is
used to denote a level of industrial process which rely on controlling an entire chain of the life cycle of
product [1]. The key point of this phase is automation that intensively employs the information and
communication network. It is widely known that the industrial robot system has supported an automation
of production process in the industry. Robots can easily replace human roles in a series of assembly
processes, packaging, and quality control. A robot provides consistent and predictable productivity that
reduces management oversight [2]. In the context of industry 4.0, some works has already been devoted
to integrate the overall task of robot in industrial scale as reported in [3]. Borisov et al. designed the
industrial cyber-physical system for workpieces production and processing using three articulated robots
that are Mitsubishi MELFA RV-3SDB, KUKA youBot and Kawasaki FS06N [4]. While, Bonci et al.
proposed a practical solution to the improvement of the performance of a manufacturing system that
integrates robotics, mechatronics and automation systems at different level [5]. Grau et al. discussed a
historical perspective on industrial robotics in factory automation from its early stage until industry 4.0
era [6].
In the academic environment, a prototype of robot equipped with control techniques is developed to
provide a good understanding of how robots work to students. Due to unavailability of proper resources
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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

and facilities in the laboratory, it is needed an innovative way to create such learning process in order to
get the effective results. For a certain reason, one could realize a virtual laboratory platform of industrial
robot [7], while other could build a prototype for academic purpose that integrate some aspect including
hardware assembling skill, programming skill, and so on [8,9]. Generally, robot can be classified into
three forms that are manipulator, mobile robot, and humanoid robot. A manipulator is constructed
similar to a human arm. It is composed of links and joints with the gripper's tip resembling a hand or
other form to hold a workpiece. Mobile robots are robots that move using wheels or legs, while
humanoids are robots in the form of humans or animals. In manufacturing system, a manipulator arm is
a type of robot that commonly used to pick and place the workpieces into a certain position. In a batch
process, the manipulator arm picks, grasps, and moves the part from one place to certain place on a
conveyor belt. Fig. 1 shows an example of the manipulator arm that realizes a pick-and-place process.

Figure. 1. A manipulator arm packs plastic parts into the boxes on the factory floor (left) and performing
a bushing assembly task (right) [10].

This paper describes a prototype of manipulator arm for implementing pick-and-place task in industrial
robot system. Manipulator arm separates items based on the color detected by the TCS3200 color sensor
and then processed by the ATmega2560 microcontroller. Furthermore, the output of the microcontroller
will send a signal to four servomotor drivers to move the robot arm in the desired direction. The robot
picks objects and places them in the designated place. Recent works regarding a prototype of
manipulator arm that performs pick-and-place task have been already reported in [11-14], for name a
few. Mucchiani et al. proposed a method for picking objects of the manipulator with end-effectors that
have no degrees of freedom [11]. Their technique can be applied to grasp a large variety of object shapes.
Ropo et al. worked on design and implementation of a manipulator that used to pick and place
ferromagnetic metals from one place to another [12], while Manjula & Karamagi realized a prototype
of manipulator that was capable of picking objects and migrating them across a 10-inch horizontal with
high accuracy and precision [13]. Shi & Koonjul presented a real time planning grasping algorithm for
bin-picking and kitting application of a certain manipulator arm [14].
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes on system design including block
diagram and technical specification of the proposed manipulator arm. Hardware realization and
experimental results is given in Section 3. It covers an interconnection between the components and the
others as well as the mechanical structure of the prototype of manipulator arm. Last section provides the
concluding remarks about the experimental results and further works to improve the performance of the
constructed manipulator arm.

2. Method
Block diagram of the proposed prototype is depicted in Fig. 2. A manipulator arm is equipped by
TCS3200 color sensor, ATmega2560 microcontroller, and SG90-type servomotor. The color sensor is
used to detect the color of objects in the form of cubes that will be moved to a designated place.
Microcontroller captures data from sensor, processes them, and sends to servomotor. It has 4 the

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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

dedicated servomotor to render a movement of robot such as grasping the object, moving the robot arm
forward behind and up-down, and putting the object into the specified place.

Figure 2. Block diagram of the proposed manipulator arm.

The TCS3200 color sensor has an array of photo detectors, each with either a red, green, or blue filter,
or no filter [15] as shown in Fig. 3. It works by reading the intensity value of the light emitted by the
super bright LED (stands for light emitting diode) on the object. The reading of the light intensity value
is done through an 8x8 photodiode matrix, where 64 photodiodes are divided into 4 groups of color
readers. Each color illuminated by the LED will reflect the LED beam towards the photodiode. The
reflected light has different wavelengths depending on the color of the detected object. This makes the
TCS3200 color sensor is capable of reading several colors. Reflected wavelengths and LED beam of
colored objects activate one of the photodiode groups on the color sensor. Whenever the photodiode
group used is active, S2 and S3 pins will send a signal to the microcontroller to inform the detected
color.

Figure 3. TCS3200 color sensor (left) and its pin out configuration (right) [15].

In the proposed manipulator arm, ATmega2560 microcontroller is employed to process the data from
the TCS3200 color sensor. It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM
outputs),16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB
connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button [16]. Such microcontroller has often been
used for the purpose of robotics based implementation, see for instance [8][17][18]. Based on sensor
data, the output of the microcontroller will send an actuating signal to four servomotor drivers to move
the robot arm in the desired direction. Four servomotors are installed at gripper, joint, elbow, and base
respectively as shown in Fig. 4. Gripper grasps the object that will be put at the specified place. In fact,
a cube shaped object will be clamped with two finger-like forms of the manipulator arm. A servomotor
supports the fingers to clamp the object. Other servomotor is dedicated to render the joint movement. It
will rotate the object and move up and down as well during pick-and-place operation. Reaching the
object at a certain position and shortening of the manipulator arm are possible by the servomotor
installed on the elbow. While, the other servomotor is used to drive the base part such that the
manipulator arm can rotate to put the object at a specified place.

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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

Figure 4. Parts of manipulator arm that are driven by servomotor [19].

3. Results and discussion

Interconnection TCS3200 color sensor, ATmega2560 microcontroller, and SG90 servomotor is given
in Fig. 5. Each pin of TCS3200 color sensor denoted by S0, S1, S2, and S3 is paired to digital pins of
ATmega2560 microcontroller which has the pin number 31, 33, 35, and 36 respectively. While, output
of TCS3200 color sensor is connected to the pin number 39 of ATmega2560 microcontroller.
Servomotor is driven via transmitting an actuating signal produced by microcontroller in the form of
pulse width modulation. The pulse width of the actuating signal will determine the position of the
rotation angle of the servo motor shaft. For example, the pulse width with a time of 1.5 ms will rotate
the servo motor shaft to the 90⁰ angle position. If the pulse is shorter than 1.5 ms, it will rotate in the
direction of 0⁰ or counter clockwise, whereas if the pulse is given longer than 1.5 ms, the servo motor
shaft will rotate towards the position 180⁰ or clockwise.

Figure 5. Interconnection between TCS3200 color sensor and ATmega2560 microcontroller (left) and
between SG90 servomotor and ATmega2560 microcontroller (right).

In addition to the hardware, the prototype of manipulator arm is formed with certain mechanical
structures made of acrylic. Such material becomes the main body of the robot as well as a robot frame
that forms a manipulator arm including the gripper. The robot parts prior to being assembled are given
in Fig. 6. There are five grouped parts that build the mechanical structure of the proposed manipulator
arm which denoted by the number 1 until 5 in Fig. 6. Parts grouped in number 1 will form the link and
elbow which is useful for the manipulator arm moving the forward-backward and up-down. The parts
grouped in number 2 become the place where the servomotor is installed as an actuator of the robot.

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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

Gripper is realized by the parts grouped in number 3, whereas the body of robot is composed by the
parts grouped in number 4. While, the part marked with number 5 are designated as the base of the
proposed manipulator arm.

Figure 6. Parts that forms a mechanical structure of the proposed manipulator arm.

The constructed manipulator arm is shown in Fig. 7. It comprises of gripper, joint, elbow, and base. This
prototype is designed to provide an understanding of students in terms of manipulator arm construction
and pick-and-place tasks that must be done by robot. The gripper must be able to carry objects with a
certain shape and color, then putting objects in a designated place. Prior to the constructed manipulator
arm can move the object, the robot must recognize the color of the object. In practice, color recognition
is done by storing a value of certain color in its RGB code. This RGB code is collected by bringing the
TCS3200 color sensor closer to an object with a certain color then storing the respective data in the
microcontroller. This step is shown in Fig. 8.

Figure 7. The proposed manipulator arm when initial state (left), reaching the object (middle), grasping
the cube shape object.

Figure 8. Storing RGB value of respective color; red (left), green (middle), blue (right).

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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

Experiments are carried out to pick a cube shape object with a certain color and then place into the
provided container. In this experiment, the provided container means the designated place for putting
the respective object with a certain color. Snapshot of experimental results is given in Fig. 9. Meanwhile,
time response of the constructed manipulator arm to carry the object and placing in the specified location
is tabulated in Table 1.

Figure 9. Pick-and-place the object.

Table 1. Time response of pick-and-place the object.

Object time (s)
red cube 23.16
green cube 23.83
blue cube 25.05

4. Conclusion
Design and implementation of the manipulator arm that showing a pick-and-place task of the object has
been presented. The proposed manipulator arm employs TCS3200 color sensor to recognize the objects
color. From the experimental results, the color sensor can distinguish the colors of the object very well
such that the manipulator arm is capable of putting the object into the specified place. Servomotors as
actuators of the constructed manipulator arm could move according to the angle programmed through
the ATmega2560 microcontroller by adjusting the actuating signal time of each motor so that the robot
moves properly.
However, the improvement should be done to enhance the performance of the constructed
manipulator arm in terms of smoothness in the robot movement, time response of the pick-and-place
task, and robustness to light intensity around robots that can interfere with color recognition.
Application of intelligent control in controller design as reported in Najmurrokhman and Amad is also
interesting to be implemented for achieving pick-and-place task faced with uncertainty of the shape, the
opacity of color, and so on [20,21]. Utilization of the camera as a sensor towards the vision based robot
system is also interesting to work further in order to increase the capability of selective picking of the
object [22].

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Annual Conference of Science and Technology IOP Publishing
Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1375 (2019) 012041 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1375/1/012041

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